Category: visual

Friday June 29

JACKO AND THE LADYBUG: A Styrofoam cup with dead ladybug, $29,900. Jars of internal cow organs, $250,000. A life-size sculpture of Michael Jackson with his pet chimpanzee, $5,600.000. “Who, in a troubled economy, is buying this stuff? Do they really believe they’ll enjoy looking at it for the rest of their lives? And perhaps most important, where do they put it?” Slate 06/28/01

PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST IN DECLINE: In 1996, portrait artist William Utermohlen learned he had Alzheimer’s Disease. He was 60 at the time, and had just finished a self-portrait. Over the next five years, as the disease progressed, he continued doing self-portraits. That series of pictures, recently published, “graphically demonstrates the decline of spatial awareness, co-ordination and concentration associated with the disease.” The Telegraph (UK) 06/29/01

Thursday June 28

ON THE TRAIL OF STOLEN ART: Theft of art seems to be on the rise. “Most of the stolen art comes to London or America. Some of it goes to museums, but much of it is bought secretly by private collections for a fraction of market value. And this at a time when the focus on the uncovering and repatriation of hot art – from the Holocaust, the Soviet era, illegal digs at ancient sites, etc .- is at an all-time high in the US.” Forbes.com 06/27/01

SLIMMING DOWN THE DE YOUNG: San Francisco’s de Young museum goes through its storehouse and sells off a couple thousand works of art as it refocuses its collections. “After the auction house takes its commissions, the city-owned museums will net about $1.5 million, $500,000 more than projected.” San Francisco Chronicle 06/27/01

GIVING IMPRESSIONISM ANOTHER CHANCE: “Of all art extravaganzas, the Impressionist blockbuster tends to be the biggest, the most popular, and possibly the worst.” Ah, but wait. There’s a show at the Clark gallery which “brings back into focus some of the startling newness of a Monet, a Manet, a Degas. It might even fortify you for the next blockbuster.” Slate 06/26/01

A VIRUS IS A VIRUS: A computer virus written and launched for the Venice Biennale is, its makers say, a piece of art. The artists provide the source code and are selling it on T-shirts and on CD’s. But it’s still a virus and viruses… Wired 06/28/01

Wednesday June 27

STOLEN TO ORDER: Two paintings – a Gainsborough and a Bellotto – were stolen in a three-minute raid on an 18th-century house in Ireland Tuesday. “They are valued at £3 million, and were almost certainly stolen to order.” A pair of latex gloves left behind may be the crucial clue. Irish Times 06/27/01

• FUNDRAISING: Dissident or Provisional IRA fundraising was suspected as a possible motive for one of Ireland’s most daring art robberies.” The Times (UK) 06/27/01

TILTING AT ART: London has embraced modern art in a big way. Contemporary artists are stars. So how peculiar that national portrait prize-winner Stuart Pearson Wright should lash out against the type of contemporary art that has made Tate Modern a star. The Times (UK) 06/27/01

LONG GONE MONET SELLS: A Monet painting not seen in public since 1895, was sold for £10.12 million at Sotheby’s in London Tuesday. The Times (UK) 06/27/01

SURVEYING ARCHITECTURE: “While architecture is the most public of art forms, it’s the least subject to public debate in most of the nation’s newspapers. That’s one of the findings of the first-ever online survey of 40 architecture critics writing for daily American newspapers. . . Only about a fourth of the critics have degrees specific to the field of architecture, the survey found, but about half report having practical work experience in architecture or a related field.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 06/27/01

EMPTY ISLAND: The buildings on Berlin’s Island of Museums have been closed for some time, with major plans for renovation stalled by the city’s perilous financial condition. Now one of the museums has reopened after three years of renovation. Okay, there’s no art inside yet, but…Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 06/26/01

SERIOUS CARTOONS: Political cartooning is a dicey profession. Politicians threaten you, readers cancel their subscriptions because you made their favorite pol look like a doofus, and editors constantly ask you who that guy on the left is supposed to be. But a new exhibit of Soviet political art on display in London shows another side of the profession – caricatures as propaganda. Nando Times (AP) 06/27/01

Tuesday June 26

THE NEW VAN GOGHS: In Berlin, a flourishing trade in commissioned “fakes.” “Under German law, the work of any painter dead for at least 70 years can be reproduced, provided the copy is an inch shorter than the original, and its origin clearly marked at the back.” The Independent (UK) 06/26/01

THE OLD MONETS: Two rarely seen but much sought-after paintings by Claude Monet will hit the block at Christie’s in London this week, and are expected to fetch a pretty penny. According to one art expert, “There’s a bit more Monet around than you’d expect because he’s so expensive that museums can’t afford to buy him, so there’s quite a lot of splendid pictures still washing about in private hands.” BBC 06/26/01

DIVINE INTERVENTION: “A Buddhist-influenced artwork incorporating the baptistry of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine was removed on Saturday after the director of the cathedral’s visual arts program ordered the work’s artist to revise it or remove it. The removal prompted two other artists to pull their works from a group exhibition at the cathedral focusing on spirituality.” The New York Times 06/26/01 (one-time registration required for access)

AMATEUR STING: Archeologists in Egypt are protesting the allowance of amateur diggers on archeological sites. “The experts, who often fail to make headlines after years of painstaking work, have been stung by the amateurs’ sometimes spectacular finds, like the discovery of the lost underwater city of Herakleion” Middle East Times 06/22/01.

SO NO RETRACTABLE ROOF, THEN? It’s no secret that Chicago’s Wrigley Field, one of baseball’s most beloved parks, is often a bigger draw than the team that plays there (this year’s Cubs’ playoff run notwithstanding.) A new renovation plan promises to bring cosmetic improvements without disrupting the classic architecture of the place. Chicago Tribune 06/26/01

NEW GIANT BUDDHA: A plan to build the tallest Buddha in the world – 43 metres high – in Korea, has ignited controversy among Korean monks. Korea Times 06/26/01

LOOK FOR THE “MADE IN CHINA” LABEL: So you can’t afford a real Van Gogh, but want something rich-looking to hang over the mantle? That knockoff you pick up for a song at the museum gift shop more than likely originated in a small Chinese village called Dafen, and you probably paid ten times what the artist got for it. Nando Times (AP) 06/25/01

VIRTUAL PRESERVATION: “The British Library has preserved for the nation a unique 15th century “illuminated” manuscript worth £15m. The library has also made a virtual computer version of the Sherborne Missal so visitors can see more than they would if it was displayed under glass.” BBC 06/26/01

Monday June 25

SETTLING ON NAZI THEFT: The owners of a Monet painting up for auction this week have made a deal with the heirs of the painting’s original owner who was forced by the Nazis to sell the work in 1935. The two parties will split the proceeds from the sale, estimated to be between £1.5 million and £2 million. The Times (UK) 06/25/01

ASSEMBLY-LINE FORGER: “By French law, an artist is allowed to make twelve copies of any bronze sculpture, all to be numbered. Any further copy, even if made in the artist’s lifetime and under his supervision, is legally considered a reproduction.” So the some 6000 bronze fakes perpetrated by French entrepreneur Guy Hain and sold for $18 million are grounds for some good long jail time. The Art Newspaper 06/22/01

THE MUSEUM’S BIGGEST CHALLENGE: Outgoing Louvre director Pierre Rosenberg is pessimistic about the future of museums. “Until now there was art education in schools. You had a little bit of knowledge about antiquity and Old and New Testament. Now this knowledge is lost all over the world. What is the Annunciation, for example? The Louvre does deal with 1 million children each year. But that’s not enough. If the problem is not taken up by the Ministry of Education, it won’t work. And that’s everywhere. Without education, I am sure we are lost for the future.” Newsweek 06/25/01

HOT FOR VERMEER: The hottest show in London this year is the National Gallery’s Vermeer exhibition, featuring 13 of the artist’s 35 surviving paintings. The museum says it could easily sell twice the number of tickets it is offering, but doesn’t want to turn the galleries into a mob scene. London Evening Standard (UK) 06/24/01

RECONSIDERING MIES: Paul Goldberger reviews the new interest in Mies van der Rohe. “Mies’s buildings look like the simplest things you could imagine, yet they are among the richest works of architecture ever created. Modern architecture was supposed to remake the world, and Mies was at the center of the revolution, but he was also a counter-revolutionary who designed beautiful things. The New Yorker 06/15/01

Sunday June 24

A MISSED OPPORTUNITY: New York City recently held an architectural competition to decide what form a new 9-acre development in Midtown Manhattan would take. “The competition. . . raised public expectations that New York was finally poised to embrace architecture, as many other cities have, as a means of reckoning with the challenges of a changing world. The outcome — the choice of two long-established New York firms to create a master plan for the site — fell far short of those expectations.” The New York Times 06/24/01 (one-time registration required for access)

MORE THAN JUST ANOTHER SKYSCRAPER: The tallest structure in the world turns 25 this year, and it has aged well. “The CN Tower is more than a terrific swizzle stick. It is more than unrequited love over expensive beer and nachos in a revolving restaurant. But, though it has defined monumentality over the last quarter century, it maintains an enigmatic presence to those who look upon it daily.” The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 06/23/01

SERIOUSLY FUNNY: If you haven’t yet encountered Aaron McGruder’s edgy, confrontational comic strip, you will. The Boondocks is growing in popularity, even as its creator fields accusations of racism and snubs from many of the black community’s power brokers. McGruder’s main characters are all African-American, and he has no intention of using his strip as a tool for educating white America, which may explain why it is succeeding where other “black” comic strips have failed. The New York Times Magazine 06/24/01 (one-time registration required for access)

Friday June 22

WHAT SEROTA MEANS TO THE TATE: Figurative artists criticize Tate director Nicholas Serota for his taste in collecting. And true, you’re not likely to see figurative work at the Tate under his regime. But at mid-20th Century the Tate missed out on some of the most compelling art of its time by being too conservative. Serota, by contrast, is building one of the most important collections of late-20th/early-21st Century art. The Telegraph (UK) 06/22/01

• TATE WATCH: The Tate has been completely transformed from what it was a few years ago – good and bad. With Tate Modern director Lars Nittve leaving, where should the Tate go from here? And who are the main contenders for the job? The Times (UK) 06/22/01
• GREAT EXPECTATIONS: “As the intelligentsia speculates on who will be Tate Modern’s new director — the glamorous Julia Peyton-Jones, director of the Serpentine, is this country’s most obvious candidate — the role is starting to emerge as something of a mixed blessing. Success may breed success, but Tate Modern’s start is intimidating — even the lavatory paper budget has had to be multiplied as the building creaks with an unforeseen quantity of visitors.” The Times (UK) 06/22/01
• Previously: LEAVING THE TATE: The head of the Tate Modern, Lars Nittve, has announced he is quitting the museum to become director of Stockholm’s Moderna Museet, the country’s national museum of modern art. “Friends said that he was partly influenced by homesickness and denied that the complicated management structure at the Tate, which effectively made him Number Two at the gallery, played a part in his decision to leave.” The Telegraph (UK) 06/21/01

ARE YOU NOW OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN? Postmodernism in architecture is dead isn’t it? At the least, no one wants to admit to being a postmodernist. “We must offer respect for the dead, but I’m not sure to whom the condolences should go if no one admits to really being a postmodernist, and if most of those presumed to have been such are still thriving, and, in some cases, are designing in more or less the same style.” Architecture Magazine 05/01

AS IF NEW YORK COULD GET ANY CREEPIER: Last year, a flower-covered 43-foot puppy adorned Rockefeller Plaza as part of New York’s public art program. But apparently, a pooch is just too tame for those edgy denizens of the Big Apple, who will spend the next several months under the steely gaze of a 30-foot high spider named Mama. Nando Times (AP) 06/21/01

BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME (AND BREAK IT): A London artist hoping to prove that Londoners could appreciate public art without destroying it, found her sculpture vandalized. “I’d hoped to show that, even here, open-air sculpture doesn’t have to be made of bronze or stone to survive. It looks like I’ve been proved wrong. I was prepared for it to happen but not within eight hours of it going up.” London Evening Standard 06/21/01

ONE WAY TO STEAL ART… Then there was that day in 1995 when a visitor to the Museum of Modern Art in New York walked up to Duchamp’s famous bicycle wheel, pulled it off its pedestal, walked through the galleries, down the escalator and out the front door, escaping in a cab. The next day the artwork mysteriously reappeared, thrown over the museum’s fence… Forbes.com 06/21/01

• …AND ONE WAY TO GET IT BACK: “Berliners have woken up to find their city plastered with “Wanted” posters depicting the face of the late celebrated artist Francis Bacon. The posters offer a reward of 300,000 German marks (£100,000). Yet it is not Bacon himself they are demanding, but the return of a portrait of the artist stolen 13 years ago.” BBC 06/22/01

Thursday June 21

THEFT EVERYWHERE: A new report on looted art in Europe is alarming. “New research shows that in Italy alone more than 88,000 objects have been stolen from religious institutions over the past 20 years, while the Czech Republic has lost 40,000 objects since 1986.” The Times (UK) 06/21/01

LEAVING THE TATE: The head of the Tate Modern, Lars Nittve, has announced he is quitting the museum to become director of Stockholm’s Moderna Museet, the country’s national museum of modern art. “Friends said that he was partly influenced by homesickness and denied that the complicated management structure at the Tate, which effectively made him Number Two at the gallery, played a part in his decision to leave. Nittve was said to have received a personal telephone call from Gran Persson, the Swedish prime minister, asking him to take the new job.” The Telegraph (UK) 06/21/01

CONCEPTUALISTS MEET VERMEER: The hottest young British artists today are highly conceptual. Vermeer, on the other hand, was a master of technique. Six young Brits go to the new Vermeer show at the National Gallery and record their impressions. The Guardian (UK) 06/21/01

VIRUS ART: Conceived and compiled for the invitation to the 49th Venice Biennale, ‘biennale.py’ is the product of the collaboration of two entities, 0100101110101101.ORG and epidemiC, already known for other shocking actions, often bordering with crime. ‘biennale.py’ is both a work of art and a computer virus. Exquisite Corpse 06/18/01

Wednesday June 20

THE HEART OF RICHNESS: “Africa, already plundered of its people by slavers, its animals by big-game hunters and poachers and its mineral wealth by miners, is now yielding up its cultural heritage. Across the continent, art and artifacts are being looted from museums, universities and straight from the ground. Most of the objects end up in Europe or the United States.” Time 06/18/01

BEFORE THE FLOOD: More than 1000 archeologists are working day and night to rescue artifacts in the Three Gorges region of China before the area is flooded by a giant hydro-electric project in 2003. People’s Daily (China) 06/19/01

NOW THAT THE CROWDS HAVE GONE, the Venice Biennale is a pleasure. “Somehow, miraculously, the show, even in its charming incoherence, manages to fit into and complement the city in the most remarkable way, a Harold to its Maude, making for a brief, crazy romance of unlikely soulmates, the true beauty of this event.” The New York Times 06/20/01 (one-time registration required for access)

FRANKLY FRIDA: The most anticipated art movie of the year is the Frida Kahlo biopic. “How has the swarthy, moustachioed woman who stares unsmiling from self-portraits become such a cult figure? How has a small fierce, intellectually complex cripple with an unbroken eyebrow become an icon? It happened partly by accident.” The Times (UK) 06/20/01

Tuesday June 19

SURPRISE – THE ASHMOLEAN DOES MODERN: Oxford’ Ashmolean is the world’s oldest public museum But “the opening of a modern gallery this week will uncover a collection quite unknown to the public and is a dramatic development at a museum internationally renowned for its old master paintings and its vast collection of antiquities.” The Guardian (UK) 06/19/01

VEXING VEXILLOLOGY: The rankings are out, and New Mexico, Texas, and Quebec are leading the pack, while Montana, Nebraska and Georgia have some serious work to do. On what, you ask? Why, only the most visible visual symbol of a state or province’s identity: its flag. Simplicity and relevance seem to be the best way to get your flag at the top of the list, while crowded logos, too many colors, and Confederate battle emblems will land you near the bottom. Ottawa Citizen (CP) 06/19/01

Monday June 18

MUSEUM CRASH? The growth in the number and interest in museums in the past decade has been unprecedented. But the growth is unsustainable, and beneath the boom is the unsettling fact that many museums are seriously undercapitalized. One expert says it will be a difficult next decade as museums try to stabilize. The Art Newspaper 06/15/01

BEING AT BASEL: There are 260 galleries at this year’s Basel art fair. Another 640 galleries were on the waiting list to show there, lured by the prospect of 53,000 art buyers attending the show. “By the time Art Basel ends [today], collectors and museums are expected to have bought $250 million to $300 million worth of contemporary art, though the exact total is not known because gallery sales are private.” The New York Times 06/17/01 (one-time registration required for access)

VERMEER/NOT VERMEER: Is it a 36th Vermeer or not? London’s National Gallery plans to display the disputed painting thought to be a Vermeer next to two verified originals and let the public judge. The Telegraph (UK) 06/17/01

SEEKING CHAGALL: New York’s Jewish Museum is offering a reward for information about a Chagall painting stolen from the museum last week. The New York Times 06/16/01 (one-time registration required for access)

CLEANING BILBAO: About a third of the 42,000 titanium sheets cladding the outside of the Guggenheim Bilbao are discolored with red stains. Earlier this year architect Frank Gehry criticized the museum for not maintaining the building; now the sheets will be cleaned at a rate of about 150 a day. CBC 06/15/01

SEEKING VAN GOGH: A writer seeks out three scenes that Van Gogh painted, and finds that though they have changed much in the 113 years or so since they were painted, they have stories to tell. Financial Times 06/18/01

Sunday June 17

THE TWO FACES OF… As the US government investigation of auction houses Christie’s and Sotheby’s for collusion wound up, Christie’s negotiated an amnesty agreement. But secret internal documents recently obtained show that what the company was saying to investigators and what it was actually doing were two different things. The New York Times 06/17/01 (one-time registration required for access)

PISA REOPENS: After 11 years of working to stabilize it, the leanning tower of Pisa reopened this week. “The $30 million project to stabilize the 12th century tower and return it to the sustainable tilt of 163 years ago is being hailed as one of the great engineering feats of all time.” San Francisco Chronicle (Boston Globe) 06/17/01

CAUTIONARY TALE: It’s been five years since Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art moved into its new building. Expectations were so high for a building that would transform the museum, but “what an odd structure it is that forces staff to get around it in order to best fulfill the mission of a museum. This one has done so for the last five years, and because there is no other choice, let’s look on the bright side.” Chicago Tribune 06/17/01

THE ARMANI UNIVERSE: Is Georgio Armani a billion-dollar clothes industry or an artist working on the human form? Hint – if you have dinner with the man, his people send over a selection of clothes for you to wear for the evening. “But this is just the way the Armani universe works. You accept an invitation to dinner. You wear the dress. It’s a deal most celebrities are used to. But as a mere journalist, I have to confess, it made me feel slightly uncomfortable.” The Observer (UK) 06/17/01

Friday June 15

WORLD’S BIGGEST ART FAIR: The art world is in Basel this week. “Once a year, for a week, this quaint little city in the corner of Switzerland becomes a fondue pot of culture. All the big dealers dip in as it plays host to the world’s biggest modern and contemporary art fair. The scene is truly international and so is the language — which is money. Behind the schmoozing and smiles, you see the glint of the hard sell.” The Times (UK) 06/15/01

KLIMT INSIDE, STRIKERS OUTSIDE: That’s how the National Gallery of Canada opens today. “The strikers say it’s their work that made the Klimt show possible, and they’re bitter that it’s opening without them.” The view of management is that “it’s up to the public to decide if they can afford to miss the most comprehensive show of Klimt’s work ever to reach North America.” CBC 06/14/01

FLAME BROILED ART: An art student at Britain’s Sunderland University had her car with her art project for school in the trunk stolen. When police recovered it, the car and the art were a charred wreck. So she had the 11-year Ford Fiesta towed to a shop where she made an art project out of it and entered it in the school’s final show. The Telegraph (UK) 06/15/01

Thursday June 14

GERMANY RETURNS ART TO GREECE: Germany is returning some of the art in its museums to Greece, which has been fighting to get it back. “Berlin’s Pergamon museum will send Greece ten sections of the Philippeion monument, built between 338 and 336 BC. Germany will also help restore the monument at Olympia, the sanctuary and site of the Olympic Games.” The Times (UK) 06/14/01

AND IT WON’T EVEN KILL YOU: Jam a bunch of quarters in the slot, pull the knob, and reach into the dispenser for a refreshing (if habit-forming) pack of… art? Yes, art – step right up and meet the Art*o*mat, a converted cigarette machine that dispenses pocket-sized pieces of art for the consumer on the go. Coming soon to a museum, grocery store, or laundromat near you. Washington Post 06/14/01

PERCENT FOR WHAT? Since 1979 the City of Chicago may have spent $15 million on its Percent for Art program. Or maybe it didn’t. The Public Art Program apparently hasn’t kept records of how much it has collected or what it has commissioned. Most alarming is the director’s explanation of his accounting: “It’s the city. We juggle money all the time.” Chicago Tribune 06/13/01

CHOCOLATE, RAW OYSTERS, AND GUSTAV KLIMT? “According to a study by the Institute of Psychoanalytical Psychiatry, published in Rome last week, a visit to an art museum — or even a church — can get those erotic feelings flowing. The study of 2,000 museum goers this spring concluded the lush flesh exhibited in Renaissance, Baroque and classical masterpieces left at least one-fifth of art lovers so excited they had a ‘fleeting but intense erotic adventure’ with a stranger.” Ottawa Citizen 06/14/01

ART THAT DICTATES ART: Frank Gehry’s influence on museum design is to elevate buildings to the level of showy pieces of art. But what of the art inside? The new architecture dictates the art by the nature of its strong personalities. And surely that isn’t good for art… The New Republic 06/13/01

A FAMILY TRADITION: For decades, the Wyeth family has quietly produced beautiful, if old-fashioned, works of art from their family homestead in rural Pennsylvania. Three generations of Wyeths (illustrator N.C. Wyeth, his son Andrew of “Helga” series fame, and Andrew’s son Jamie) have each carved their own personal niche, but all three are bound together by a long tradition of complete disregard for what the critics think. Chicago Tribune 06/14/01

Wednesday June 13

VISUALIZE FRANCE: A new French government study of the visual arts world warns that “French contemporary artists are being pushed out of the world market because of stifling state patronage, a lack of private collectors and a failure of imagination.” The Times (UK) 06/13/01

TWO MORE VENICE BIENNALE REVIEWS:

• MODEL EXPERIENCE: “Fine painting, fascinating video, acres of photographs, a sculpture or two and plenty of self-indulgence – the Venice Biennale offers a perfect snapshot of the art world today.” The Telegraph (UK) 06/13/01
• NOT PLEASANT: over-crowded, under-inspired — and over-run with little golden turtles. The Times (UK) 06/13/01

SHAKESPEARE ON DISPLAY: The Art Gallery of Ontario plans to show a painting done in the early 1600s that is purported to be a portratit of Shakespeare. CBC 06/12/01

LET THERE BE LIGHT: A new exhibit produced jointly by museums in Amsterdam and Pittsburgh examines the role of light, both natural and artificial, in art history. The curators contend that the direction of visual art was changed forever by the development of gas and electric lights, and make a direct link between the oft-competing worlds of science and art. The New York Times 06/13/01 (one-time registration required for access)

Tuesday June 12

POLITICS – AND MORE – LOOM OVER NEW WARSAW MUSEUM: Anda Rottenberg was the moving force behind a new Museum of Contemporary Art for Warsaw. Frank Gehry was going to design it. Now the Polish Minister of Culture has removed her from the project. Stated reason: criticism of a selection committee. Apparent reason: politics. Suspected reason: anti-Semitism. The Art Newspaper 06/11/01

THE OVERCROWDED BIENNALE: The Venice Biennale is up in full cacophony. “As elsewhere in Venice, the crowd is now the problem more than ever. Has the Biennale grown too big? The gardens in Castello, its historic heart and home, have no more space for national pavilions. The ancient Arsenale, with its sprawl of disused yards and workshops, fill up as every new space becomes available. Meanwhile the Biennale spreads ever more widely through the city.” Financial Times 06/12/01

TATE-HATER: Hilton Kramer laments the Tate Museum and the toll of success. “This ill-conceived project clearly represents the spirit of the age, which in art and in life is besotted with an appetite for destroying what is good by enlarging it to a scale of extinction. It puts us on notice that in the twenty-first century we shall need no wars to devastate our monuments to the past. Our cultural bureaucrats have shown themselves to be fully capable of performing the task for us.” New Criterion 06/01

Monday June 11

CHAGALL MISSING: A rare Chagall oil painting has been stolen from Manhattan’s Jewish Museum. “A janitor noticed some sawdust on the floor near where the painting had hung around 8 a.m. [Friday], but didn’t report it because he wasn’t aware the painting was missing.” New York Post 06/09/01

PLAYING POORLY IN CANADA: The Canadian branch of Sotheby’s auction house has been getting waxed by the competition, its share of the Canadian market dwindling quickly. So the company has hired a high profile celebrity to run the company’s operations. Toronto Star 06/11/01

TOTEM RETURN: Chicago’s Field Museum has agreed to return a 27-foot tall totem pole to the Alaskan tribe that requested it. The pole was taken in 1899 by an artifact gathering expedition. Nando Times (AP) 06/11/01

VENICE BIENNALE OPENS: “At least 65 countries are coming to the 2001 biennale, including for the first time New Zealand, Singapore, Jamaica and Hong Kong. This has stretched capacity to the limits. The Italian artists were so numerous this year that they had to be housed in the Padiglione Venezia, the pavilion usually reserved for the press.” The Art Newspaper 06/08/01

• BIENNALE WINNERS: A list of artists winning prizes at this year’s Biennale. ARTForum 06/10/01

Sunday June 10

VENICE BIENNALE OPENS: “From the almost 300 artists showing in this 49th Biennale – 130 chosen by Szeeman, and 156 by curators in each of the 63 countries represented at the festival – you get about a half-century’s worth of styles, ideas and notions about what good art can be.” Washington Post 06/10/01

REMAKING LONDON: London’s mayor’s beliefs about his city’s future can be summarized as “either London buckles down and starts building skyscrapers with the abandon of a Shanghai or a Hong Kong or else Britain heads for the economic third division.” In his drive to remake the capital, he considers the preservationist English Heritage “the biggest threat to London’s future since the Luftwaffe.” The Observer (UK) 06/10/01

THE PUBLIC BLANK CANVAS: Two weeks before an artist was to install art inside 200 New York taxicabs, the NYC Taxi Commission denied permission for it. “The commission adhered to the common civic notion that the public deserves nothing less than predictable neutrality in its urban landscape. The flip side of our worship of individual expression is the enforced uniformity and blandness of the spaces we share: gray, blockish office buildings in the International Style, muzak in elevators, Starbucks and McDonald’s.” The New York Times 06/09/01 (one-time registration required for access)

Friday June 8

VIENNA’S BOLD AMBITION: Vienna’s new contemporary arts center is ambitious – “in its ambitions this project is right up there with Tate Modern, the Bilbao Guggenheim and the Getty Center: an international focus for the arts on a scale that only few institutions and metropolitan spaces can aspire to.” Financial Times (UK) 06/08/01

GUERILLA TRANSIT: A student at the Glasgow Institute of Art has been conducting guerilla art on bus riders. At bus stop kiosques, “instead of bus times and route information, puzzled travellers have found musings by the 23-year-old about how his life has been intertwined with bus journeys, including longing for a former girlfriend, a past job at Asda and the joys of eating carry-outs on late-night buses.” The Scotsman 06/08/01

Thursday June 7

THE CRITICS HATE IT: Critics are piling on the design for the new World War II memorial on the National Mall in Washington DC. “Friedrich St. Florian’s design for the National World War II Memorial diminishes the substance of its architectural context. The design does not dare to know. It is, instead, a shrine to the idea of not knowing or, more precisely, of forgetting. It erases the historical relationship of World War II to ourselves. It puts sentiment in the place where knowledge ought to be.” The New York Times 06/07/01 (one-time registration required for access)

PLEASE DO NOT SIT ON THE ART: Chicago was the first American city to put a bunch of fiberglass animals in prominent locations and allow local artists to have at them, and the “Cows on Parade” project sparked a wave of copycats across the U.S. Now, with “Suite Home Chicago,” the city is trying again, with furniture being the rather unconventional theme. Still, don’t expect function to follow form: “Partly to discourage the homeless from camping out on them, they ‘have been made as uncomfortable as possible.'” Chicago Tribune 06/07/01

• HERE PIGGY PIGGY… Seattle’s doing fibreglass Pigs on Parade. Have artists been reduced to this? “It does serious damage to the public conception of what artists do. It moves artists away from being agents of inquiry and sensors of cultural shifts toward decorators. Good eyes for hire. What it amounts to is a retrograde shift in the artist’s position in society.” The Stranger 06/06/01

Wednesday June 6

TATE MODERN – SUPERSIZE ME? Tate Modern wants to double in size? “Tate director Sir Nicholas Serota wants more space because there are living artists out there, especially in America, who are reaching a certain age and are ‘looking for places where their work can be seen’: Elsworth Kelly, for example, or Robert Rauschen-burg, or Jasper Johns. The hope is to seduce them with beautiful expanses of new gallery, so the Tate can have many versions of its room of paintings given to them by Mark Rothko.” London Evening Standard 06/06/01

MARTHA STEWART IN THE SMITHSONIAN? Nothing against rich people – but should money allow you to choose what goes into a museum? The Smithsonian seems to be in a conflict of judgment as big donors get a very large say in some new projects. Washington Post 06/05/01

POST-BLACK: A new exhibit at the Studio Museum in Harlem presents “the work of twenty-eight unheralded African-American artists, who… plainly owe much to the politically convulsed nineties generation. This exhilarating show suggests that the ordeal of race in America may be verging on an upbeat phase that is without precedent.” The New Yorker 06/04/01

I WANT MY PAINTINGS: The “great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson of the last King of Poland, has written to the director of the Dulwich Picture Gallery in south London, claiming ownership of 180 paintings – including several Rubens, three Rembrandts and two Canalettos” – a collection worth £250 million. His claim, at first look seems to be shaky. London Evening Standard 06/06/01

MUSEUM INQUIRY: The Australian government is grilling top management of the National Gallery over some of the wrong answers museum officials provided to a government inquiry, including sayings that museum loans and traveling exhibitions had doubled when they hadn’t. One Senator demands: “I want to know why they got it wrong.” Sydney Morning Herald 06/06/01

MORE NAZI LOOT? Last week Glasgow’s museums put up lists of their artwork with uncertain provenance. “A bronze bust of Mary Queen of Scots and two paintings that once belonged to Charles I have been included in the list of works of art in Scottish galleries that may have been looted by Nazis.” Glasgow Herald 06/06/01

Tuesday June 5

BATTLE FOR THE STORY OF A NATION: Australia’s recently-opened National Museum attempts to tell the history of the country, and it has been generally praised by critics for being surprisingly candid. But documents obtained by the Sydney Herald show that deciding how that story would be told and what would get into the museum was a fierce behind-the-scenes battle. Sydney Morning Herald 06/05/01

A LAME DEBATE OVER ART: Australia is debating what its new Museum of Contemporary Art should look like. But it hasn’t been much of a debate, complains one critic. “Commentary has overwhelmed reporting and opinion pieces have pushed personal agendas. The usual suspects have been rounded up for comment and it has been nothing if not predictable. The newspaper letters columns too have lacked any sense of middle ground in their discussion of the MCA. It is as if reasoned debate must be avoided at all costs.” Sydney Morning Herald 06/05/01

WHAT TO DO WHEN IT’S STOLEN? “Selling stolen art in the auction business is, unfortunately, nothing new. At issue is the degree of liability an auction house has if it is learned that they have sold stolen goods–or at least goods to which the title is in dispute – and what the unwitting buyer can claim in recompense. In other words, how financially responsible should an auction house be when it fails to provide the kind of rigorous background check that can ensure buyers they aren’t buying hot art?” Forbes.com 06/04/01

MIES BACK IN FASHION: After a decade and a half in which Ludwig Mies van der Rohe has been “the juiciest target of those who attribute the physical alienation of American cities, at least in part, to the glass-and-steel high-rises on which he was the supreme authority,” the architect is suuddenly hot again. Why now? Perhaps it’s a reaction to “frustration in some quarters with the blob-and-matchstick work of the post-Gehry generation of architects.” ARTNews 06/01

Monday June 4

UNFAIR ACCOUNTING: Was a recent audit of museums by the Scottish government unfair and misleading? Some museums say the audit discriminates against smaller institutions. “David Clough, director of Kilmartin House Trust museum, in Argyll, claims it is unfair and portrays museums such as Kilmartin as ‘dead end institutions with no economic future’.” Glasgow Herald 06/03/01

WHAT TO CLEAN? Experts are piling on in condemning the Ufizzi’s plan to clean Leonardo’s Adoration of the Magi. “It’s ridiculous. I have not the slightest idea why they want it cleaned. These are the first sketches and first ideas that the master put down with his brush, and who is to say which of these lines were really his?” The Telegraph (UK) 06/03/01

Sunday June 3

ART IN THE SLUMS: When Jacobo Borges proposed a new museum in one of the worst slums of Caracas, critics said few would come to such a bad location to see art. “But six years later, the Jacobo Borges Museum is one of the most celebrated in South America – and not just because the neighborhood is bad.” Atlanta Journal-Constitution 06/03/01

TECH-SAVVY: “Instead of taking place on the margins, in out-of-the-way galleries with the requisite electrical outlets, technologically based art, which now includes digital projects, has increasingly become the main course.” San Francisco Chronicle 06/03/01

Friday June 1

INSURING PROBLEMS: It’s getting more difficult to borrow major works of art for exhibitions. The Australian government has a program to help insure loaned art in Australia, but even that program is becoming problematic. Sydney Morning Herald 06/01/01

SOMETHING TO GO INSIDE: The Guggenheim is expanding with new locations. But it needs art to go inside. So it has established some acquisition committees. “Unlike other museums, which have had such committees for decades, the Guggenheim formed these only six years ago. During the 1980’s and early 90’s, the collection barely grew.” The New York Times 06/01/01 (one-time registration required for access)

AUCTIONING CHURCHILL: A large collection of Winston Churchill documents, including photographs never before seen in public, are to be auctioned. But British historians – who have not yet seen the collection – are upset that the collection may leave the UK without them having a chance to buy it. London Evening Standard 05/31/01

HEART’S DESIRE: If Edwina Currie won the lottery, she knows exactly what she’d do – buy a Rembrandt. Specifically The Night Watch. “It invites you in; it begs you to leap inside the frame and gird your loins in 17th-century Amsterdam.” The Times (UK) 06/01/01

THE CRITIC THEY LOVED TO HATE: Joan Altabe was an award-winning architecture and visual art critic for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, and the newspaper’s most controversial writer. But her acid word processor won her lots of enemies, and after she was laid off last month, many wondered if her foes had finally got her fired. St. Petersburg Times 05/31/01

IT’S ALL ABOUT PRIORITIES: The spotlight-loving director of Canada’s National Gallery was awarded the prestigious Order of Canada recently, and his employees are pretty steamed about it. Why? They’ve all been on strike for three weeks. The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 06/01/01

UP NEXT – POTHOLE COLLAGE! Anything can be art if you look at it right. Today’s supporting example: Ottawa’s Louise Levergneux, who has made quite a nice little career out of photographing, collecting, and marketing – get ready – manhole covers. Ottawa Citizen 06/01/01

Wednesday May 31

• “JUST CALL IT McMOMA”: Getting your museum noticed these days requires “surreal amounts of money” these days, not to mention the promotional instincts of PT Barnum. The Museum of Modern Art’s Glenn Lowry has been “resculpting” MoMA so that the museum gets its fair share (of money and attention). He has hired a crack marketing team at private-sector salaries and has chosen to oversee projects that include building a Philippe Starck-meets-Amazon.com art and design Web store, and renting part of the museum’s art collection to a billionaire Japanese real estate mogul. New York Observer 05/31/00
• HOW TO SAVE VENICE ART? Acid rain is eating the outdoor art of Venice. “Amputated arms, graffiti, and the black streaks caused by sulphur dioxide have marred the appearance of much Venetian sculpture, and everywhere there are examples such as Alessandro Vittoria’s statue of Saint Zaccaria on the central portal of the church, which remains faceless after its marble features disintegrated.” Some want to rescue the work by taking it inside and replacing it with copies. The Art Newspaper 05/31/00
• DANCING ON THE THAMES: Architect Terry Farrell designed two of London’s most flamboyant buildings on the Thames in the 1980s – the MI6 headquarters and the redesigned Charing Cross Station – then promptly fell out of favor without a single London commission in the 90s. Now he’s got seven major London projects in the works, all for prime sites along the river, and whether or not they’re loved, they’re sure to be noticed. London Times 05/31/00
• REPORTS OF OUR DEATH ARE… The Royal Canadian Academy of Art decided to do a millennial show and made an open call to artists. The idea might have worked 120 years ago when the Academy was formed. “Maybe it even worked 30 years ago, when the RCA’s annual exhibition finally died off. For better or worse, however, at the beginning of the 21st century it’s simply not how things work – as any truly vigorous arts organization would have understood right off. Toronto Globe and Mail 05/30/00

Tuesday May 30

• THE REAL DICK: That maybe-Richard Diebenkorn-that wasn’t in that E-Bay auction that got everybody so excited a few weeks ago and forced a winning bid of $135,000? Well maybe it is real after all. Though the auction was nullified, experts are now looking at the painting to determine its patrimony. San Francisco Chronicle 05/30/00

Monday May 29

• AN APPETITE FOR (FREE) ART:Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art gets a corporate grant to abolish its $12 admission charge. In the first four days since going free, attendance has doubled, and twice the museum has had to temporarily close its doors because of overcrowding. Sydney Morning Herald 05/29/00
• THE STORY BEHIND THE PAINT: It’s been possible to tell what lies underneath the layers of paint of a painting for some time. “However, new technologies such as infra-red analysis – one of several methods used to determine the history and construction of paintings – makes the task more precise.” The technology is helping rewrite the histories of some works of art. The Age (Melbourne) 05/29/00
• A FAKE FAKE: Fifty years ago, Australia’s most important painting – thought to be by 15th-century Flemish master Jan van Eyck –  was declared a fake by experts in Brussels who ruled it was not by van Eyck and was probably not even Flemish. The painting was taken down from the National Gallery and put away. But new research shows the experts might have been wrong and now the painting may be returned to display. The Age (Melbourne) 05/29/00
• THE STOLEN ART PROBLEM: Theft of artwork has become a major international problem. The British government wants to do something about it. But first – just how big a problem is it? No one seems to know for sure. The Telegraph (London) 05/29/00

Sunday May 28

• ART STARS:Britain’s hip new artists have become glamorous celebs. “This isn’t so surprising when you consider the new wealth giving a golden glow to new British art. It’s become a nice little earner.” But do they lose some their hipness by traveling in these new circles?  Sunday Times (London) 05/28/00
• MUSEUMS AS ENTERTAINMENT: “Entertainment gets a bad rap as diversionary distraction, a shallow Pied Piper ostensibly leading us away from the serious things in life. But try telling that to Shakespeare or Bernini, who managed to make extremely entertaining art. Entertainment’s dual responsibilities are to hold interest and give pleasure. Why this should be considered a minor achievement is anybody’s guess – especially for art – although American Puritanism is one likely culprit. But art is not brain surgery, nor the answer to perennial problems like war or world hunger.” Los Angeles Times 05/28/00

Saturday May 27

• MOMA NO-NO: Media Mogul S.I. Newhouse has been forced to give up his priuzed seat on the Museum of Modern Art board of directors (he’s been a member for 27 years). “One of the world’s most prolific art collectors, Newhouse stepped down to avoid being expelled for breaking a rule barring trustees from buying a painting from the museum. He bought a 1913 Picasso, Man with Guitar, that the museum had decided to de-acquisition to fund new buys. The picture, in the museum’s basement, was sold to an unidentified art dealer who sold it to Mr Newhouse for $10 million.” The Times (London) 05/27/00
• NYET EXCHANGE: Russian President Vladimir Putin has approved a law banning the return of stolen WWII artwork to Germany.  “The works in question include a rare Gutenberg Bible, gold artifacts from the ancient site of Troy, a drawing by Rembrandt and paintings by Claude Monet and Henri Matisse.” Washington Post 05/27/00
• NASA DE MEDICI: When you think of the US space agency, you think rockets, not art. But NASA has commissioned hundreds of artworks about space, and a number of them are currently touring the country. “Featured artists include Peter Max, Robert McCall, Robert Rauschenberg, Norman Rockwell, Andy Warhol and Jamie Wyeth. To give them creative fodder, NASA allows selected artists wide access to events, such as shuttle launches.” Discover.com 05/25/00
• MUSEUMS AS THEME PARK: Have museums been caught up in an infotainment vortex? “It is no longer enough to be the repository of objects and artifacts stored for presentation and posterity, presented to the public for their edification. Now museums have to engage with the public, competing with the rest of the entertainment industry for tourist dollars and leisure time. All the while maintaining their learning function.” Policy.com 05/26/00
• PUBLIC ART PROTEST: For two months neighbors of the University of Massachusetts in Boston have been protesting the pending installation of a new piece of public art. The sculpture was due to be installed this weekend, but this week someone took a sledgehammer to the work’s support piers, forcing a postponement. Boston Globe 05/27/00

Friday May 26

• LOOT AIN’T LEGIT: The International Council of Museums has condemned the Louvre’s recent decision to exhibit two 2,000-year-old terracotta figures which were looted from Nigeria and then illegally exported by a Brussels dealer. French president Jacques Chirac has intervened to plea with Nigeria’s president to legitimize the acquisition which he hopes will have a permanent home in the Louvre’s new non-European art gallery. The Art Newspaper 05/25/00
• FINDING FAULT: Neil MacGregor, director of London’s National Gallery, has criticized the UK government’s recent euphoria over much-publicized museum and gallery openings, including the Tate Modern. Striking at the Government’s boast that it had increased access, Mr. MacGregor said: “There may be more access; but it is access to ignorance.” The Independent 05/26/00
• ART IN A CAN: Minneapolis has a graffiti problem. Some officials charge that the city’s arts institutions are encouraging the taggers by sponsoring spray can art. Minneapolis Star-Tribune 05/26/00 
• A RIGHT TO BE NAKED? A university of South Florida student labored on his art exhibition for much of the semester. He built a fiberglass cave in which he proposed to live in naked for the duration of the show. Uh-uh, said the gallery director – no one can stay overnight in the museum, and besides, we don’t like the nudity thing. The artist is crying censorship. St. Petersburg Times 05/25/00 

Thursday May 25

• CORPORATE DIVESTMENT: Sara Lee donates 52 works of art to 40 museums. It’s the largest gift to the most museums in US corporate history. ” The 52 works are described as representing ‘a concise survey of European avant-garde painting and sculpture from 1870 to 1960.’ Not much would strike a viewer as ‘avant-garde,’ most of the art having entered the mainstream years ago.” MSNBC (Newhouse) 05/23/00
• DIRTY LAUNDRY: UK Arts Minster Alan Howarth has selected a panel of experts to examine ways to crack down on Britain’s growing black market for smuggled art and antiquities. An estimated £500 million is laundered every year through the sale of looted artifacts from the Middle East and Africa, all of which can then be legally bought and sold in the UK. Ananova 05/24/00
• SECOND CYBER-THOUGHTS: The Tate Museum commissioned a web artist known as Harwood. “He proposed to make a mock version of the existing Tate website, to which one in three visitors to www.tate.org.uk would be diverted. Clicking through the various categories of the museum’s site, visitors would be dropped into Harwood’s version produced in the same structure and design, but with ‘hacked’ artworks” – work changed digitally by the artist. The work was to debut this week, but that’s been postponed, perhaps to straighten out some reservations about the concept. The Guardian 05/25/00
• DOME DEFENSE: Despite public outcry, shoddy attendance, and the dissenting opinions of 64 MPs, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has defended the UK government’s decision to pump £29m into the Millennium Dome. BBC 05/25/00
• DESIGN FOR LIVING: Israel’s architecture exhibit at the upcoming Venice Biennale attempts to answer the beguiling question: What, exactly, is a city? “In curator Hillel Schocken’s view, modern urban planning has been an utter failure; not one successful city was created in the 20th century. He proposes a new definition of the city, one that fulfills the idea of intimate anonymity.” Ha’aretz (Israel) 05/25/00
• COSMIC SHIFT: For the first time since Washington DC’s Air and Space Museum opened in 1976, the museum is not the most popular museum ticket in town. In the battle of Smithsonians, Natural History is winning. “In the first four months of 2000, 2.3‚million people visited Air and Space. In the same span, 2.8‚million have gone through Natural History. Last month 1‚million visitors walked through Air and Space, compared with 1.3‚million at Natural History.” Washington Post 05/25/00
• The most-stolen work of art in the world goes on display. Ananova 05/25/00 
• BELAGIO TO CLOSE SUNDAY: The Belagio Hotel gallery will close this weekend and its art will be sold. The hotel plans to reopen the gallery later with traveling exhibitions. Las Vegas Sun 05/25/00 

Wednesday May 24

• DULWICH DOOMED? “The most architecturally venerated of London’s art galleries,” the 18^th-century Dulwich Picture Gallery has recently undergone extensive restoration thanks to £5 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund. How did the revitalization affect Sir John Soane’s original collection? “It’s hard not to feel a twinge of regret, as Soane’s ghost has faded a little more with this new work. It feels normal, which it never was before.” London Evening Standard 05/24/00
• ROCK ON THE BLOCK: New York’s art deco landmark Rockefeller Center is up for sale for an estimated $2-2.5 billion. The property includes 12 historic buildings and is home to Christie’s and NBC. Times of India  (Reuters)05/24/00
• PORTRAITS TO THE STARS: In 1969, London’s National Portrait Gallery dropped its requirement that subjects must be dead for 10 years before being portrayed on gallery walls. Ever since, celebrities have been vying for space among the canvases. “With a television star preferred any day over a worthy politician, the gallery has veered towards the voyeurist appeal of a Madame Tussaud’s.” New York Times 05/24/00 (one-time registration required for entry)  
• LOSE, LOSE: London’s Millennium Dome has been at the center of controversy since the day it was built. The latest stir: the Dome was given an extra £29 million from the National Lottery this week on condition that its chairman resign. He did, and then MPs protested the government’s earlier promise that no further public funds would be advanced to the Dome. The Telegraph 05/24/00
• MARKET-MAKERS: In 1990, the now-defunct Japanese Itoman Corp. purchase some expensive artwork, “a move that caused huge damage to the trading firm” in part because the prices for the paintings were highly inflated. Last week the paintings were sold at auction and the low prices are probably deflated. The artmarket in Japan see its highs and lows. Daily Yomiuri 05/24/00

Tuesday May 23

• WHERE’S THE MODERN IN TATE MODERN? So the opening of the Tate Modern was the art event of the century. But there are a few problems, aren’t there? “The Tate owns fewer than 700 pieces of international art – not all that many really. It wasn’t created to be a museum of world art at all – in fact, at about the time that the Museum of Modern Art was being established in New York, the Tate was turning up its nose at the work of Gaudier-Brzeska, and didn’t really start buying 20th-century international art until well after the Second World War. The consequence of this is that, although the Tate owns 38 Picassos, it also has enormous gaps in its collection.” New Statesman 05/23/00
• WYNN TO GET BELAGIO TAX BREAKS: Casino mogul Steve Wynnis expected to benefit handsomely from major tax breaks when MGM sells off Belagio Hotel’s $200 million worth of fine art in Las Vegas. Las Vegas Sun 05/23/00 
• ART JUMBLE: The new new thing is for museums to hang art out of its traditional chronological order. This of course has some critics and curators fuming. Not Thomas Hoving, however: I applaud the jumble-jamble approach. A work of art is an act of magical genius and it essentially doesn’t matter if it was created in the fifth decade of whatever century or is an example of the late middle mature style of whatever artist or school of painting. And it really doesn’t edify the member of the viewing public if that work is isolated within other similar works in time or space. Artnet.com 05/23/00

Monday May 22

• WATERING THE SPIRIT OF ART: A pair of “guerilla artists” walked into the new Tate Modern museum and urinated in Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain.” “The pair claimed that the purpose of their action was to ‘celebrate the spirit of modern art.’ Bemused onlookers in the room applauded, thinking that they had just seen an officially planned performance. The artists claim that after their performance, which lasted about a minute, the Tate closed the room to the public but made no attempt to apprehend them.” The Guardian 05/22/00
• FIRE SALE: The British government is considering early plans to sell off the fantastically costly Millennium Dome at a bargain basement price. The Dome has been a popular and critical flop. The Telegraph 05/21/00 
  • BAIL OUT: Dome needs £30 million from the National Lottery to stave off bankruptcy and save the jobs of 5,000 staff. The Independent 05/22/00
• GOLD MEDAL PERFORMANCE: Toronto-born architect Frank Gehry has won the Royal Gold Medal for Architecture, “awarded on behalf of the Queen by the Royal Institute of British Architecture, and still, despite the big bucks attached to newer international prizes, the most prestigious of its kind.” The Guardian 05/22/00
• TROPHY PICTURES: Ireland’s booming economy has caused a surge in Ireland’s art market prices. The Telegraph (London) 05/22/00
• ONLINE GUGGENHEIM: The Guggenheim World Empire becomes the WWW Empire. The museum “has pledged the equivalent of a real building’s budget to create the Guggenheim Virtual Museum (GVM), launched this month, on a laptop near you. Wagering that the New York-based architecture firm Asymptote can do for it in virtual space what Frank Gehry’s Bilbao did in the physical world, the Guggenheim’s commitment is not only costly but long-term: Its design and construction will be ongoing, given the fluid nature of the medium.” Architecture Magazine 05/00 

Sunday May 21 

• PICTURE PERFECT: Who says photography has to record something real? In the late ’70s, a number of artists began “questioning the documentary capacity of photography. Instead of taking pictures of extant scenes, James Casebere built elaborate models and photographed them, presenting the prints rather than the constructions as his art. Other artists were coming up with similar strategies at the time, all departing from the tradition of straight photography and its commitment to reality.” Los Angeles Times 05/21/00

Friday May 19

• CHILD’S P(L)AY: Damien Hirst has agreed to pay an undisclosed amount to two children’s charities to settle a copyright suit sparked by his latest work, “Hymn,” a 20ft bronze sculpture (which recently sold for £1m) that is a larger-than-life replica of a well-known child’s anatomy set. BBC 05/19/00  
• WHY WE LIKE OUR BIG McHOUSES: Everyone, it seems, decries suburban sprawl. From the McHouse architecture to the sterile streetlife, the ‘burbs make an easy target. But “for all the scorn that’s heaped on the suburbs – and especially on subdivisions of nearly identical houses on the fringe of metropolitan areas – people like living there. And not just middle-class drones either.” Weekly Standard 05/22/00
• VINTAGE FAKES? Some of Louise Hine’s vintage master photographs appear to have been forged. Experts are investigating. Chicago Tribune 05/19/00
• MAN OH MANN: The governor of Virginia has objected to a slide show by photographer Sally Mann given earlier this month in a state-owned museum. In his letter to the museum’s interim director the governor wrote he was ‘shocked and dismayed that this type of exhibit occurred on state owned property.’ ” Fox News (AP) 05/19/00
• HEY – IT’S ONLY A BUILDING: “And the opening of Tate Modern. My reaction? Stunned. Literally stunned. Suddenly, London has become the greatest city the world has to offer, the city that is positively buzzing with energy and optimism and sheer in-your-face modernity.” The Guardian 05/19/00
• TOP OF 1000 YEARS: Four American museum curators each have a go at picking their top ten artworks of the past 1,000 years.  Two of them pick Chartres as No.1. Christian Science Monitor 05/19/00 
• I THINK I CAN: No. 3 auctioneer Phillips comes back with another auction – and has better luck selling it after last week’s disaster. New York Times 05/19/00 (one-time registration required for entry)
• SITTING ON CEREMONY: Plans to erect a statue of Franklin Delano Roosevelt sitting in a wheel chair stir controversy in Washington DC. Washington Post 05/19/00

Thursday May 18

• TWO DONUTS ON STILTS: Frank Gehry’s Experience Music Project is said to look like a cross between a spaceship and a glob of playdough – what about his plans for the new Manhattan Guggenheim? “Take two donuts with holes in them, and put them up on stilts.” Disney World, say the critics. The future, say Gehry and Thomas Krens, the Guggenheim’s director. Art Newspaper 05/18/00
• TWO DONUTS ON STILTS: Frank Gehry’s Experience Music Project is said to look like a cross between a spaceship and a glob of playdough – what about his plans for the new Manhattan Guggenheim? “Take two donuts with holes in them, and put them up on stilts.” Disney World, say the critics. The future, say Gehry and Thomas Krens, the Guggenheim’s director. Art Newspaper 05/18/00
• “MISS IT AND YOU’LL CURSE YOURSELF”: The Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto broke all of its attendance records this spring with a blockbuster show of Egyptian artifacts. But popular as ancient Egypt is, to get people through the door the museum hired a slick ad agency to whip up interest. Toronto Globe and Mail 05/18/00
• POP DADDY: Richard Hamilton, whose 1956 collage “Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Homes So, So Appealing?” is considered by many to have signaled the birth of British pop art, is still at the top of his game – fascinated by all things modern and by his own paintings’ iconic status. “Perhaps that is why of all living British artists he is the one whose work gets the richest showing in the opening displays at Tate Modern.” The Guardian 05/18/00  
• DID ALBRIGHT’S FATHER STEAL ART? A new biography revives claims that US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s father stole paintings after WWII and that the family still has them. Prague Post 05/17/00 
• BUYING ART WITH YOUR MILLIONS: The newly-rich internet crowd gets into the contemporary art market in a big way. This week’s Christie’s sale of contemporary art was marked by record prices and spirited bidding. “It was such a young audience I thought for a moment I’d wandered into ‘Gladiator.’ “ New York Times 05/18/00 (one-time registration required for entry)
• MALEVICH SALE: A somewhat overlooked sald of a Malevich painting at the Phillips auction last week signals a final end to Stalinism. New York Observer 05/18/00
• FAILURE TO PROTECT NATIVE ARTISTS: Indian artists tell Congress that the US government is not enforcing a law designed to protect American Indian artisans from forgers said to be cutting into a $1 billion a year business. Baltimore Sun (AP) 05/18/00

Wednesday May 17

• MONUMENT TO MUSIC: Frank Gehry’s swoopy droopy Experience Music Project (please don’t call it a museum) is opening soon in Seattle. Says Gehry: “This building is supposed to be a lot of fun. That’s what Paul Allen wanted. Fun. It’s supposed to be unusual. The (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum) in Cleveland wanted a straight-forward corporate look. Paul didn’t want that. He wanted what he called a swoopy building. Nobody has seen this before or will see it again. Nobody will build another one.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer 05/16/00
  • A BUILDING OR A METAPHOR? “Up close, the latest offering from architect Frank Gehry looks like a cross between a giant spaceship and globs of playdough.” National Post (Canada) 05/17/00
• TRACES OF GENIUS: Scientists plan to test DNA found in smudges and fingerprints in Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks and sketches to better understand the master and distinguish his work from that of his apprentices. “Vezzosi believes that the best traces can be found in ink stains on the handwritten pages of Leonardo’s notebooks, as the master himself recommended using saliva to thicken black ink.” Discovery.com 05/16/00
• PICKING UP THE PIECES: At one time the top spot running Sotheby’s would have been considered a real dream job. But with scandals and investigations and uncertainties, William Ruprecht confesses that he “took a very deep breath and had a moment of hesitation” before accepting the assignment last February. After last week’s successful spring auctions, it appears some of the storm has passed. Financial Times 05/16/00
• A REAL CIRCUS: The State of Florida decides to give control of Sarasota’s Ringling Museum (with a fine collection of Old Master paintings) to Florida State University. Now the museum’s director has resigned and the Board, University, and public are in conflict. Sarasota Herald-Tribune 05/15/00

Tuesday May 16

• THE REAL PAINTING STARS OF LONDON: Curious that as the Tate Modern opens, virtually ignoring painting from the past 20 years, London galleries are full of it – and a lot of it is figurative and quite interesting. This is where the enduring contemporary stars of the painting world are hanging out. Financial Times 05/16/00 
• PIANO PRESTO: Renzo Piano just might be the world’s busiest architect: For Hermès he is designing a Far East headquarters in Tokyo. In America, he is working on the Harvard Art Museum, the Chicago Art Institute, an art campus in Atlanta and a sculpture gallery in Dallas. There is a telecom HQ in Rotterdam, a Paul Klee museum in Switzerland, a trio of new concert halls in Rome, an elegant tower in Sydney nearing completion, and a pilgrimage church in southern Italy which looks set to be the religious masterpiece of millennium year. In Berlin his Potsdamer Platz, a vast development spanning a blighted area on either side of the Wall, is nearly complete. The Times (London) 05/16/00
• SOME STRIKING MOMA WORKERS RETURN TO WORK: About 40 percent of the 250 workers striking against the Museum of Modern Art in New York over poor wages and job security have crossed the picket line, says museum management. New York Times 05/16/00 (one-time registration required for entry)
• ONE SICK PUPPY: Even his admirers call Gottfried Helnwein that. “He earned his first gallery show in the 70s by driving around his native Vienna dressed in Nazi uniform, his head bandaged, fake blood trickling from his mouth. It caught the eye of an art dealer who signed him up and has remained faithful to Austria’s enfant terrible ever since.” The Guardian 05/16/00
• A BOARD HELD ACCOUNTABLE: Leaders of Vancouver’s arts community hold a summit with the board of the Vancouver Art Gallery. The VAG has been under attack since the murky departure of of the museum’s director and some questionable actions by the board of directors. Vancouver Province 05/16/00

Monday May 15

• LONG TERM STRATEGY:Even though last week’s auction in New York by Phillips – pushing hard to gain a toehold on Sotheby’s and Christie’s – was little short of a disaster and cost the company a great deal of money, Phillips is in to stay. “It would be a mistake to believe that it can be done quickly. It will take three to five years to reposition ourselves and grow from there. This is by no means a quick fix.” The Telegraph (London) 05/15/00
• THE WORLD’S TALLEST YACHT’S MAST: “In the very heart of Chicago, work is about to begin on the tallest building in the world. Including its twin 450ft lightning-conducting digital communications antennae, 7 South Dearborn will be 2,000ft tall, with 108 floors.” It will be as beautiful as it is tall, as innovative as it is graceful. The Guardian 05/15/00
• THE HISTORY OF THE WOLRD: Berlin’s answer to London’s Millennium Dome is an ambitious exhibition called “Seven Hills – Images and Signs of the 21st Century,” a celebration of humankind’s future and a catalog of its past. Die Welt 05/15/00
• MY BODY MY ART: A number of artists are tapping into a vein of concern about what some see as runaway technology in medical science. “The debate’s over what we do with our bodies – science is catalyzing these debates – but where they play them out are culturally, personally, and legally. The artwork becomes a corporate body to mimic what happens in reality.” Wired 05/15/00
• WILL CLICK FOR ART? Last week’s sham sale of a fake Diebenkorn over an E-Bay auction had plenty of people scratching their heads. Of course there was all the business about the speculation over the painting. And yes it was peculiar how gullible some people apparently are. But what really threw skeptics was the fact that someone would actually pay six-figures for a piece of art by clicking a mouse. Maybe the internet can sell online art after all. New York Times 05/15/00 (one-time registration required for entry)
• WHEN MARY SUED SALLE: In January New York art dealer Mary Boone signed David Salle to her stable. Now she’s suing him for $1 million. Evidently “Boone promised to advance Salle $500,000, in return for which he would consign work worth at least $850,000 to her gallery. She’d pay all the promotional costs, and they’d split the sales, 60-40 in his favor.” Boone says Salle failed to deliver on the promised work. New York Daily News 05/14/00 
• ART OF THE WEB? Last week the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art gave out a big award for online art. Did anyone care? A panel in SF talked about web art at the museum this weekend.  “Asked whether artists working on the Net need or want the collaboration of traditional art institutions, Webby-winner Michael Samyn – prefacing his response by remarking he didn’t understand the question because he is ‘a designer, not an artist’ – said ‘No.’ ” Wired 05/15/00
• GUGGENHEIM AWARD: The Council of Europe has awarded Bilbao’s Guggenheim Museum its Best Museum in Europe award. BBC 05/15/00
• STRONG START: Australian art sales have surged in the first part of this year. Sydney Morning Herald 05/15/00
• BUT HOW TO PAY THE TAX? Under a new Australian tax system, all small businesses (including artists) must have an Australian Business Number or face having 48.5 per cent withholding tax taken out of every payment they receive. But many aboriginal artists on the edge of the Tanami Desert in the Northern Territory operate largely outside the formal economy. “Advocates for the Aboriginal arts industry claim it is unrealistic to expect most of the estimated 18,000 Aboriginal artists who derive an income from their creative work to comply with the details of the new tax system.” Sydney Morning Herald 05/15/00

Sunday May 14

• NEW YORK TO ARCHITECTURE – DROP DEAD: The new zoning rule overhaul put forward by NY mayor Rudy Giuliani amounts to a direct attack on the creativity of architects. Just how far can a government go with restrictions on building design before it violates constitutional principles? New York Times 05/14/00 (One-time registration required for entry)
• NO LIBEL: A French appeals court has ruled that art historian Hector Feliciano did not commit libel for suggesting in his book about art stolen by the Nazis that the late art dealer Georges Wildenstein may have collaborated with the Nazis during World War II. Nandotimes 05/13/00
• ART BY ANY OTHER NAME: Why must the cards labeling works of art be so vacuous? “Now, though, even the most venerable institutions have succumbed to the pull of populism: exhibitions have been dumbed down. And for this, I blame the curators and the catalogues and wall labels they provide. It is not the artists chosen that are at fault but rather the commentaries on them and quality of information supplied in the galleries.” The Telegraph (London) 05/14/00
• THE BREAK BETWEEN ARCHITECTS AND THE REAL WORLD: Los Angeles is booming. But architects aren’t smiling. “The reason is that once again the profession’s creative elite has been relegated to the sidelines, designing scattered landmark residences while the majority of new housing remains in the hands of corporate developers. The break between the worlds of first-rate architecture and conventional home building – never close in the first place – is now a chasm.” Los Angeles Times 05/14/00
• NEW IRISH ARCHITECTURE: Ireland didn’t produce much in the way of decent architecture in the 1980s. Most of the large civic projects were roads and bridges. “Disengaged from the infrastructural process, architects felt envious and threatened. One prominent architect nominated for an award remarked that he would hate his building to be ‘beaten by a runway’ at Dublin airport.” Now some new signs of life. Sunday Times (London) 05/14/00

Friday May 12

• HITLER’S ART DEALER, Karl Haberstock, has been a major ongoing donor of Germany’s Municipal Art Museum in Ausburg. The museum, which has been publicly denounced by the World Jewish Congress, has finally agreed to investigate the provenance of the museum’s more questionable works and to open its archives to the public over the Internet. Wired 05/11/00 (Reuters) 
• THE STARS COME OUT: The Tate Modern opens with a powerhouse collection of high-wattage luminaries. The Guardian 05/12/00
  • ART CENTERPIECE: Britain’s newest and brightest museum. The Independent 05/12/00
  • POWERHOUSE OPENING: A big night for London. The Telegraph 05/12/00
  • INAUGURATION OF A NEW QUEEN: London Times 05/12/00
    • The real queen comes for a look. London Times 05/12/00
  • A BIG BUILDING: “People will go there even if they’re not going to look at art.” CBC 05/12/00
  • ART FOR ALL: The Queen cut the ribbon to officially open the Tate Modern to a gala crowd last night. Today the public gets it first look inside. Sydney Morning Herald 05/12/00
• WHO GOT THE BUZZ? Artists, that’s who. “It is pointless to start flinging labels around and referring to art as the new rock ‘n’ roll or the new fashion or even the new film industry, since what actually seems to have happened is that the art world has subsumed all these things and turned them into, well, art. At the same time, the players at the centre of all the excitement, the artists themselves, have emerged as the absolute celebrities of the moment, with the (now, not so) Young British Artists attaining a kind of super-supremacy, like the super-models and rock superstars before them.” London Evening Standard 05/12/00
• SO MUCH FOR THAT EXPERIMENT: MGM Grand has announced it will sell off its part of the $400 million worth of artwork it acquired with its purchase of the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. Former owner Steve Wynn had opened a gallery in the hotel to show the art, and charged visitors admission. MGM says it will use the money to finance its acquisition of the hotel. Las Vegas Sun 05/12/00 
• THE ART OF THE E-AUCTION: “The eBay con artists get all the attention, but what about the lesser-known eBay artists? That’s right. There is a new breed of artist using the Internet auction site as a forum for creative expression. Their work is hard to categorize; it’s a combination of conceptual art and performance art, sort of like a digital happening in cyberspace. Where else can an artist reach a potential audience of millions? What better place to make a wry comment on our materialistic consumer culture?” Boston Globe 05/12/00
• EXPENSIVE CHALLENGE: Bernard Arnault is trying to challenge Sotheby’s and Christie’s by pumping life (and a lot of money) into No. 3 auctioneer Philips. The company debuted this week’s auction with an ambitious lineup with about $81 million in art. Less than two thirds sold, however – bringing in just $40.1 million – so Arnault will have to make up the difference himself  because of the minimum prices he guaranteed to his sellers. New York Post 05/12/00
  • CHARITY AUCTION OR SERIOUS ART SALE? “The auction began nearly an hour late, and then it started with an announcement that 3 percent of the hammer prices would go to the American Foundation for AIDS Research. Dressed in a bright orange dress with matching lipstick, the movie star Sharon Stone, campaign chairwoman for the charity, made a speech about AIDS. Throughout the evening, she wandered up and down the aisles trying to drum up excitement in the otherwise dead room.” New York Times 05/12/00 (one-time registration required for entry)
• TWENTY YEARS OF MAKEOVER: In an era of rapid change in the museum world, James Wood has been director of the Arts Institute of Chicago for 20 years. “During his time, all the museum’s departments were renovated; the original beaux-arts building was restored; a wing was built; a department of architecture founded; a program of publications resumed; a constellation of conservation labs established; and curators of nearly every department were replaced.” Not to mention two decades-worth of exhibitions of art. Wood reflects on the past and future of American museums. Chicago Tribune 05/12/00
• POST-DESERT STORM ART: Iraq’s national museum, which has been closed since the Gulf War, has finally reopened to the public. More than 10,000 artifacts are on display, including rare Sumerian and Babylonian sculpture and archeological treasure. CNN 05/11/00
• LONGA THANKGA: The longest and largest Tibetan painting – a thankga about six football fields long – has gone on display in the Revolutionary Museum in Beijing. CNN 05/12/00
• CONTEMPO-PLINTH: A panel decided to make the vacant plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square an ongoing showcase for contemporary art. BBC 05/12/00
• E-MINIMALISM: It’s the digital equivalent of watching paint dry. An artist takes minimalism to the net: “On the computer screen, ‘Film Task’ appears to be a simple black square that, over eight hours, gradually turns white. Since it takes about 30 minutes for the eye to discern a change, patience is required (along with the Shockwave plug-in). A monotonous sine wave serves as the soundtrack, the only accompaniment.” New York Times 05/12/00 (one-time registration required for entry)

Thursday May 11

• NAKED, NUDE, STARKERS: No, no, no – certainly no one would suggest that Larry Gagosian’s first exhibit in his new London gallery was cynically sensation – it was art after all, featuring an artist “who pays 23 tall, slender women to spend three hours being stared at while naked except for stilettos. The 23 women were chosen for their height their figures, pale skins and auburn hair, as well as attributes best not inquired after. For three hours they stared back dispassionately as London’s art world arrived, had a long look, and then had a free drink across the road in a bar called Strawberry Moons.” London Evening Standard 05/11/00 
• SWEAT EQUITY: The Smithsonian’s traveling exhibition exploring American sweatshops – consisting of archival photos and a few historical artifacts, including mass-produced slave workshirts, union posters from the ’20s onward and objects seized in the infamous 1995 El Monte sweatshop raid – would have seemed to have been a natural for LA’s Museum of Tolerance. But the show wasn’t even advertised or the press notified. How come? LA Weekly 05/11/00
• QUEEN ELIZABETH opens the eagerly-anticipated Tate Modern today. Gala parties to follow. BBC 05/11/00
  • THE GLOBAL MUSEUM SWEEPSTAKES: The cliche in art these days is that museums are the modern cathedrals. Who cares if there isn’t enough to go inside. Increasingly visitors come to experience the architecture – “an experiential encounter that competes with, and often dwarfs, our encounters with the art inside.” Thus opens the new Tate Modern. LA Weekly 05/11/00
  • SUBJECTIVE OPINION: Instead of hanging art chronologically at the new Tate Modern, curators have taken a thematic approach, jumbling eras and ages to trace themes. The Art Newspaper 05/11/00 
  • GREAT AT THE TATE: “I’ve got complaints about Tate Modern – but because they perhaps have less to do with the museum than my own un-grooviness, I’ll save them until later. Art is what counts; and the art at Tate Modern – much of it heaped up and hidden away until now in the vaults of the old Tate Gallery (now become Tate Britain) – is marvellously served.” National Post (Canada) 05/11/00
• GOING ONCE…AH, FORGET IT: Ebay cancels the accounts of a man who was selling a painting many believed was a Diebenkorn. The online auctioeer said the man listed the work in a way that “artificially inflated the price” and accused him of “shill bidding” in which he entered bids on his own items. New York Times 05/11/00 (one-time registration required for entry) 
• RECORD PRICE: An Emily Carr painting is auctioned for $1 million in Vancouver – a record for the artist, and the most ever paid for a piece of art at auction in Western Canada. CBC 05/11/00

Wednesday May 10

• CON ARTIST: The man who put the purported Diebenkorn painting for sale on eBay Monday (and received a final bid of $135,805) “acknowledged yesterday that he concocted part of the story he used to describe the work and said he would be willing to let the buyer out of the sale. Far from being a married homeowner who cleaned the painting out of his garage to please his wife, he is single and has sold a raft of paintings on eBay.” New York Times 05/10/00 (one-time registration required for entry) 
• $14 MILLION AN HOUR: Christie’s 20^th century art auction Tuesday night had one blockbuster: a 1932 Picasso portrait of his mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter, that sold for $28.6 million. It took Picasso just two and a half hours to paint it. New York Times 05/10/00 (one-time registration required for entry) 
• AUCTIONS AWAY FROM NEW YORK: Tonight one of Emily Carr’s best paintings goes up for auction in Vancouver. It’s expected to bring the highest price for a painting ever paid in Western Canada. How much?  Between $300,000 and $500,000. “The current record for an Emily Carr painting sold at auction was “In the Circle,” which sold in Toronto in 1987 for $297,000. The current record in Western Canada for a painting sold at auction is $231,000. And the current national auction record is Lawren Harris’ “Lake Superior III,” which sold for $1.56-million.” National Post 05/10/00
• ART CATHEDRAL: In the time of Frank Gehry, one may begin to think an innovative new museum requires an innovative new structure to house it. But the new Tate Modern has found its home in a reused power station that has been transformed into a work of art unto its own. “With one neat sidestep Sir Nicholas Serota avoided all the controversy that would inevitably have raged had he commissioned a new building. He picked a site which makes the most of that much-underused London asset, the Thames, and has a stunningly powerful relationship with St Paul’s Cathedral.” The Telegraph 05/10/00
  • DANGER – 650,000 VOLTS: That pretty much describes the impact the new Tate Modern has. “We are trying both to create a museum of modern art and rethink what a museum of modern art is.” San Francisco Chronicle 05/10/00
  • OR THE LATEST BEHEMOTH? “What are people going to say in 100 years about all these new museums for modern art that we’re building, which seem to be getting almost as big as the Met?” New York Times 05/10/00 (one-time registration required for entry) 

Tuesday May 9

• TIME WILL TELL: “Sinister, bleak and elitist? Or cool, beautiful and welcoming?” London’s new Tate Modern opens officially on Thursday, but three days of parties and lavish preview receptions – expected to draw 10,000 people – are already underway. And no one’s without an opinion on how the new gallery will or will not transform the city’s cultural life. The Telegraph 05/09/00  
• “WATERSHED OF BRITISH CULTURAL LIFE”: The big bold Tate Modern “signals the importance of the art of our times, and its centrality in our culture.” The Guardian 05/09/00
• ONLINE SALES FRENZY: A California man recently put a “‘great big wild abstract painting’ that he said was bought years ago at a garage sale in Berkeley and had a small hole inflicted by a son wielding a plastic tricycle” up for sale on eBay. Bidding started at 25 cents, and within minutes had soared to $135,805, due to speculation that it was actually a 1952 Diebenkorn. “A six-figure sale would not only be one of the highest prices paid online for art, it would also be a powerful testimony to the ability of the Internet to ignite a sales frenzy.” New York Times 05/09/00 (one-time registration required for entry) 
• AUSTRALIAN ART BOOM: Melbourne antique dealer John Furphy was proud to announce that the Australian art market has experienced an unprecedented boom over the last three years – due in part to the growing popularity of Aboriginal “dot” paintings – with total sales doubling (to $69 million) between 1997 and 1999. The Age (Melbourne) 05/09/00  
• GENETICALLY TESTED ART: A gallery owner in Auckland, New Zealand is using DNA testing of a few hairs trapped under the paint to verify if his painting is a genuine Gauguin. CBC 05/08/00

Monday May 8

• DANCING WITH THE TRUTH: Most writing about Marcel Duchamp focuses on what he said or wrote. But “through most of his subsequent career, Duchamp worked harder at burnishing his persona than he ever did at creating art. And he certainly spent more time plotting ways to expand an extremely limited oeuvre than he did poring over his signature accessory, the chess board (but that’s another story).” The Idler 05/08/00
• “PART OF A DECEPTION?” Two men say they were hired by Georgia O’Keeffe to do chores for her. “John Poling, a philosophy professor at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, and Jacobo ‘Jackie’ Suazo, a retired state employee in Santa Fe, each recall being welcomed by O’Keeffe at her Albuquerque home, doing chores and, ultimately, being allowed to paint with her.” What became of the paintings is part of a tangled legacy. CNN 05/05/00
• MAKING A MOVE IN THE PASSING LANE… The spring auctions are on this week in New York, and while Sotheby’s and Christie’s still dominate, some attention is going to No. 3, Philips, recently bought by Bernard Arnault, the “billionaire French entrepreneur and bitter rival of Christie’s proprietor François Pinault. The works to be auctioned at the American Craft Museum, away from Phillips’s own inadequate saleroom, are impressive. The auctioneer that has traditionally sold pictures of five- and six-figure values has moved into a new league.” The Telegraph (London) 05/08/00
• AWKWARD TRANSITION: A familiar face will be absent at this week’s Sotheby’s auctions. Diana Brooks was the face of Sotheby’s as its president and chief executive before she resigned amidst widening auction house investigations in February. But “so big was her role at Sotheby’s that it was impossible for her simply to walk away, officials at the company say.” New York Times 05/08/00 (one-time registration required for entry)
• THE VISION THING:How could New York not build itself Frank Gehry’s new Guggenheim in Lower Manhattan?It will have to be considered the most important new piece of architecture to be added to the cityscape since Frank Lloyd Wright’s original spiral. “The Guggenheim spiral is crotchety architecture that has generated a sentimental allegiance. But the Guggenheim plan for lower Manhattan induces dazed admiration, and a shuddering recognition of how much is still possible in today’s architecture. This is the key concept: possibility. If New York is the new Rome, it too needs its follies and risk-takers, its architecture of vision and vulgarity. If we don’t build this museum now, we’ll never forgive ourselves. And a hundred years hence, neither will anyone else.” Feed 05/05/00

Sunday May 7

• CITY OF MURALS: Philadelphia is mural crazy, covering every blank wall it can with murals – some commissioned and painted by professional artists, but many others the cheerful product of community pride. “Last year at this time the mural count was about 1,800. Now it is 1,900, which prompts the question, how many will be enough? Has mural-painting become a bureaucratic cottage industry? Has it become so important to the city’s tourist promotion that no one will ever recognize a practical limit?” Philadelphia Inquirer 05/07/00
• THE FASCINATING TATE: “The intense interest in this latest Tate is not just to do with the fact that it has cost £134 million, is constructed within Sir Giles Gilbert Scott’s monumental Bankside power station by the iconoclastic Swiss modernists Herzog and de Meuron; and is about to open with a gruelling round of celebrity parties. Nor is it just about the negotiation with a wealthy American collector, Kent Logan, over the possible gift of a chunk of his £100m Saatchi-esque stash of contemporary art. No: it is the fact that the collection on display has been, so to speak, jumbled up.” Sunday Times 05/07/00
  • TAKING ON THE TATE: Among the building excitement about this week’s opening of the new Tate Modern in London, not all the critics are enthusiastic. “Tate Modern is a graceless, gimmicky name for a building that is Britain’s best example of fascist architecture, speaking in its modern abstract classicism of Hitler, Mussolini and Atatürk rather than the timid aspirations of Attlee in 1947, the year of its foundation.” London Evening Standard 05/05/00
   

Saturday May 6

• NO EYE FOR ART: A Berlin thief named Krysztof stole a van and discovered the next day that he had pulled off one of the city’s biggest art thefts ever. Too bad. He’d gotten rid of most of it. “Chagall and Miro he had never heard of, so he sold them to a fence for the equivalent of a few hundred pounds. But some of the loot, estimated to be worth DM1.6m (£500,000), was thrown away, conscientiously sorted into the relevant bins at the city dump. A portfolio of drawings went into the paper recycling skip, the metal sculpture and engravings were discarded in the box marked ‘scrap’. Some paintings had to be cut up because they would not fit. But Krysztof enjoyed the task. He never did like post-modernism.” The Independent 05/06/00
• A BLOODY MESS: An exhibit in London seeks to confront its audience. The piece that provoked the strongest reaction was a punching bag filled with pig’s blood hanging in a boxing ring which, one of the curators explained was meant as a comment on the sport. “Unfortunately one of the guests ignored the ‘Do Not Touch’ signs and punched it so hard it burst. Blood went everywhere, spattering the floors, the walls and even the startled bystanders, many of whom started screaming.” The Independent 05/06/00
• WOODMAN CUSTODY: In a memorabilia dispute, the Detroit Institute of Arts is battling with the family of a Connecticut pupeteer over who gets custody of the original Howdy Doody puppet. The museum claims the puppet was promised to it, and wants to add it to its collection of puppets. The family claims the puppeteer made no such promise. Detroit News 05/06/00

Friday May 5

• LOUVRE SHUT DOWN: Security guards at the Louvre in Paris went out on strike Thursday, forcing the museum to close. The guards struck in sympathy with cafeteria workers who have been on strike for four weeks. The museum attracts 16,000 visitors a day this time of year. The Independent 05/05/00
• MOVING ON UP: Though it attracts a million visitors a year, London’s National Portrait Gallery has always been upstaged by its more prominent neighbor, the National Gallery. But a new makeover courtesy of an £11.9 million grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and another £4 million from private donations, has transformed the gallery into somethinjg much much more. London Times 05/05/00
• DISCERNING TASTE: Noted architecture critic Donald Trump has come out against the Guggenheim Museum’s proposal to build a new Frank Gehry-designed branch in Lower Manhattan. “This building could potentially destroy the skyline of lower Manhattan. There are some people that equate [the design] to a junkyard,” says The Donald. New York Post 05/05/00
• GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER: A high-profile artist has withdrawn the promise of a multi-million donation of his art collection to the Vancouver Art Gallery in the wake of leadership turmoil. CBC 05/05/00
• DEMOCRATIC ART: The German parliament has voted to allow Hans Haacke’s controversial artwork to be installed in the Reichstag. “The work consists of a huge wooden container sunk into the floor to be filled with earth from the constituencies of the 660 members of the German parliament. Seeds from all over Germany are to be planted in the earth to produce a garden that will be left to grow wild. A neon inscription above the container will read “Der Bevölkerung” (To the people), a deliberate subversion of the words which were inscribed in bronze on the façade of the Reichstag in 1915: “Dem Deutschen Volke” (To the German people).” The Art Newspaper 05/05/00

Thursday May 4

• UNDERSTANDING IMPRESSIONISM: In the spring of 1886, your opinion of impressionism seemed determined by whether you lived in Paris or New York: “In New York, critics aligned impressionism with cubism by emphasizing their rationalist aspects, whereas in Paris their differences as perceptualist and structuralist modes took priority.” A 21-page pamphlet entitled “Science and Philosophy in Art” was circulated at an exhibition in New York and eventually made its way back the French impressionist painters, who took it up excitedly and distributed it amongst themselves.  The writer turned out to be a 29-year-old American woman chemist, Helen Cecilia de Silver Abbott, whose particular defense of impressionism was before its time. American Art Spring 2000
• FINDERS NOT KEEPERS: Last December, Chinese police caught seven midnight marauders digging in an area on the outskirts of Beijing.  The leader of the seven men confessed they had long suspected there was an ancient tomb in the area – sure enough, when  “archaeologists from the Beijing Cultural Relics Bureau continued the dig [they] concluded that, not only were they on the brink of uncovering a tomb, but given the initial findings it could be the resting place of a Han dynasty king.”  Time Asia 05/08/00

Wednesday May 3

• ARTFUL BUYBACK:Failing to convince Christie’s auction house not to sell what they consider to be looted cultural treasures, Beijingers bid on the items in Hong Kong auctions to keep the artwork in China.  “We spent half an hour calling our group leaders in Europe to report the feelings of Hong Kong’s people, the attitude of Christie’s and the statement of the State Bureau of Cultural Relics. Our leaders’ decision was that if Christie’s insisted on going ahead to sell the looted treasures, we would grab them . . . and the only way was to join the bidding.” South China Morning Post 05/02/00
• LARRY DOES LONDON: Manhattan art dealer Larry Gagosian, known as one of the brashest dealers on the art scene, is taking his larger-than-life gig to London where a new branch of his gallery will open May 9. “Gagosian has been described as “the hottest art dealer in the world,” known for persuading people to part with art they never knew they wanted to sell, and convincing others to buy it at prices they never knew they were prepared to pay.” London Evening Standard 05/03/00
• JUST ANOTHER STATUE: Boston has not had a good record of choosing public art. Last weekend a symposium sought to identify ways to turn that record around. “More artist input, and less community involvement in dictating content and style, was a subplot that simmered without reaching a boil. The community that asks for and gets another figurative statue of a local hero is a community unaware of the world of other options – the world artists know. But ‘community involvement’ has become such a lightning rod that many people in the arts are afraid to question it. Boston Globe 05/03/00
• ART OUTPOST: “Usually, new government buildings forage for their furnishings and decoration after the builders have left. Art is an afterthought. But in Moscow the British government specially commissioned furniture, textiles and works of art by British artists while the building was still under construction. The result is a tribute to their foresight, for if diplomacy is the art of presenting your country in the best possible light, the new embassy is itself a symbol of the achievements that have made Britain so pre-eminent in the visual arts in recent years. The Telegraph (London) 05/03/00
• NOT TO BE UPSTAGED: London’s Royal Academy – the good folks who brought you “Sensation” are out to do it again. Just in case anyone thought the RA was going to cede the contemporary turf to the about-to-open Tate Modern, the RA announces a sure-to-shock show focused on beauty and horror. The Guardian 05/03/00

Tuesday May 2

• PUTTING ON AIRS: A government report released today by UK Arts Minster Alan Howarth concludes that “snobbery and discrimination” by museum staffs may prevent the poor and socially disenfranchised from visiting. The report urges cultural institutions to combat social exclusion by urging staff to be less intimidating and by taking steps, like putting catalogs on the internet to reach broader, more diverse audiences. The Independent 05/02/00 
• FOR ALL THE WORLD TO SEE: An impressive number of Japanese homeowners have hired avant-garde architects to design inventive homes with no exterior walls or made entirely from glass. “These houses are not the work of oddball individualists, but creative attempts by cutting-edge architects to redefine the management of space, light, privacy and nature in the Japanese home.” Smithsonian 05/00  
• THE POLITICS OF ARTIFACTS: Honolulu’s Bishop Museum used to have an excellent reputation for the study of Polynesian culture. But times have changed. Recently, the museum allowed 83 ancient Hawaiian artifacts worth millions of dollars to be turned over to a Native Hawaiian organization as provided for by the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. But a dispute has erupted over whether the artifacts will be cared for properly and if the group that now has possession is actually entitled to the work. Archeology Magazine 05/00
• DESIGNER DISCARDS: Designer Karl Lagerfeld’s astonishing collection of 18^th century furniture and art objects fetched $21.7 million at Christie’s – the second-biggest sale ever for the Christie’s Monaco auction house. Times of India 05/02/00

Monday May 1

• SELLING HERITAGE: The Chinese government tried to stop Christie’s auction house from selling two sculptures at auction in Hong Kong. The sale went ahead anyway, and the pieces were bought by a Beijing man, who says he bought them for “the Chinese people.” According to China’s State Bureau of Cultural Relics, “both sculptures came from a set of 12 bronze animal heads that adorned the Zodiac Fountain at Yuanmingyuan, or the Old Summer Palace, which was looted by British and French troops during the second Opium War in 1860.” China Times 05/01/00
• Chinese angry at auction house over auction. New York Times 05/01/00 (one-time registration required for entry)
• POWER IN KNOWLEDGE: Several projects are underway to put online records of art sales. Once, collectors had to rely on what dealers and auction houses told them about a painting’s history. Now, at the click of a button, they can do their own research and perhaps establish a partial, and sometimes a complete, provenance. The Telegraph (London) 05/01/00
• TODAY MELBOURNE, TOMORROW… Deutscher Menzies controls the Melbourne auction business and has a leg up in Sydney. “Once the saleroom is established nationally, it will take on the big two [Sotheby’s and Christie’s] on their home turfs in London and New York. In December Menzies made a bid for the world’s third oldest auction house, the London-based Phillips. He was one of a group of shortlisted bidders but lost out to French financier Bernard Arnault, head of the luxury products group LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton. The Age (Melbourne) 05/01/00
• SOMETHING TO GO INSIDE: The about-to-open Tate Modern is negotiating with San Francisco entrepreneur Kent Logan who may be “about to give part of his £100 million art collection – one of the world’s largest in private hands – to the new museum. The Guardian 05/01/00
• MUSEUM WITH A PLAN: London’s new Tate Modern opens next week. “From the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris to the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain, examples of museums promoting urban renewal are plentiful. But for the Tate this angle proved a useful marketing tool. Having picked the site for an annex, museum officials needed to raise $214 million to convert the abandoned power plant. And they understood that a museum that promised economic and social benefits to the city would be an easier sell than art for art’s sake.”  New York Times 05/01/00 (one-time registration required for entry)
• EARLY ARTISTS: British archeologists have found evidence that  suggests humans were producing art 350,000 to 400,000 years ago. The evidence – found in a cave in Zambia – suggests the area’s Stone Age inhabitants were producing painted art before they evolved into our species. The Independent 05/01/00
• BOOTY EXCHANGE: On Saturday Germany and Russia met in St. Petersburg to swap art they had stolen from one another during World War II. “In exchange for the intricately inlaid chest and glistening mosaic from Peter the Great’s famed Amber Room, Russia has agreed to return 101 artworks looted from Germany by Soviet troops after World War II. A Russian law largely bans repatriating booty art, seen by Russians as compensation for an estimated several hundred thousand items destroyed or lost during the Nazi occupation.” Chicago Tribune 05/01/00
• NO MADAME TUSSAUD’S, BUT… London’s Royal Academy show of Monet last year raked in the visitors, making it the eighth most-visited attraction in the UK. Visitor numbers at the RA leapt from 912,714 in 1998 to 1.39m last year, boosting the academy from 19th to eighth place. But before anyone gets too excited, consider that Madame Tussaud’s at No. 2 on the list logged more than twice as many visitors. BBC 05/01/01

Monday April 30

PAINTING FOR NATIONAL PRIDE: The National Gallery of Australia has bought a Lucien Freud painting from the artist for $7.4 million. “The significance of Freud’s gritty figure painting After Cezanne is being compared by some to the gallery’s 1973 purchase of Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles.” The Age (Melbourne) 04/30/01

• PRIDE GOETH BEFORE A FREUD: Is the world indeed made up of museums that have a Lucien Freud and those which don’t (and it matters that much)? Clearly the Aussies take their acquisition of a Freud as a matter of national pride. The Age (Melbourne) 04/30/01

RUSSIAN ART THEFT: “Relatively rare during Soviet times, thefts of art, manuscripts and antiquities now bedevil Russian authorities. They occur not only at museums, such as the theft last month of a $1 million painting from the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, but also at churches, government buildings and private homes across the country. Organized criminal groups adept at extortion and prostitution have added art theft to their repertoire.” Chicago Tribune 04/29/01

GOOG ONLINE: In an attempt to combine art and e-commerce, the Guggenheim is planning to open a Web site this fall that will offer a range of cultural content and services — some of it free — in a visually exciting environment that is said to go well beyond most conventional museum sites. The New York Times 04/30/01 (one-time registration required for access)

REBUILDING AFTER THE WAR: Beirut is being rebuilt at an astonishing pace – and by a single company. “The real fight, the real battle, is one of identity: the identity of modern Lebanon. All this has crystallized in the excavations of downtown Beirut because this is the first time after the war that the people were faced with their own history.” Feed 04/28/01

NOT ENOUGH PRESERVATIVES: “Like everything in the real world, digital art decays. The cave-paintings at Lascaux have lasted some 16,000 years but today’s electronic media will be lucky to enjoy a 1,000th of that longevity. The shelf-life of magnetic tape is about 20 years; digital recording media such as floppy discs and CDs fare little better.” Computerized art’s got even bigger problems. The Scotsman 04/28/01

IN BENEFIT OF MUSEUMS: The widow of Henri Matisse’s youngest son has left a will that “stipulates that a Fellowship in foreign affairs be set up at a European university in memory of her diplomat father, who was assassinated. A Chair in art history, in memory of Pierre Matisse is to be created at a US university, and the rest of the estate, barring a few personal bequests is to be used to benefit museums anywhere in the world.” The Art Newspaper 04/28/01

Sunday April 29

ALL ABOUT THE MARKETING? Almost 5.5 million people jammed into the new Tate Modern in its first year of operation (busting the 2-2.5 million pre-opening projections). “Ironically, being such a success has brought Tate Modern problems. Queues 200 deep for food; lavatories stripped of paper; grubby marks on the chic white walls; people saying you can’t move, you can’t get in.” Just why are people so keen to get inside? The Telegraph (UK) 04/29/01

TIME FOR A CHANGE? “The time is certainly right for one of contemporary art’s lurches into fresh aesthetics: it’s been a while. And something ultimately convincing about the new selection at the Saatchi Gallery persuades me that a proper force for change is at work here. Let’s get in there and identify its breezes.” Sunday Times (UK) 04/29/01

NO BARE BREASTED VIRGIN: LA artist Alma Lopez’s “digital photo collage Our Lady, which depicts the Virgin of Guadalupe clad only in flowers and held aloft by a bare-breasted female angel” has aroused complaints. “Archbishop Michael Sheehan of New Mexico has accused the artist of portraying the religious icon as a ‘tart’ and insisted the work be pulled from Santa Fe’s Museum of International Folk Art. Hundreds of Catholic protestors have mounted prayer vigils against the photo they view as a desecration.” SFGate 04/27/01

CENSORSHIP? Curators of a show chronicling the “20-year record of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis in educating people about AIDS and combating the epidemic” are claiming censorship because officials of the Museum of the City of New York wouldn’t let them include some sexual images. New York Post 04/29/01

ADDING UP BILBAO’S GOOG EFFECT: Bilbao’s Guggenheim Museum has transformed the city. The city’s investment has been reouped already, and “the regeneration of Bilbao and its hinterland reads like a Who’s Who of modern architecture. Sir Norman Foster has designed Bilbao’s new metro. Cesar Pelli, who built New York’s World Financial Centre, has been put in charge of a 35-storey office tower on the banks of the river Nervión. Santiago Calatrava, one of Spain’s leading architects, designed Bilbao’s new airport as well as a delicate footbridge that spans the Nervión.” Financial Times 04/28/01

CHICAGO ART INSTITUTE ADDS ON: The Art Institute of Chicago is tearing down the ajacent ex-home of the Goodman Theatre to make room for a $200 million addition to the museum, designed by Renzo Piano. Chicago Sun-Times 04/29/01

DISCERNING PIGEONS: A Japanese professor of cognitive science “has managed to get pigeons to recognize whether a painting is a van Gogh or a Chagall — even if they had never seen it before. He trained three pigeons for a month by showing them on a computer screen eight masterpieces by van Gogh and Chagall. Pigeons were fed when they pecked at pictures by van Gogh. They received nothing when pecking at a Chagall.” Discovery 04/29/01

Friday April 27

CASHING IN ON ART: “For years synonymous with showgirls, gambling, and glitz, Las Vegas is reinventing itself: High culture is the gambit this time, and, in true Vegas style, there’s nothing small about these new ambitions. “If you look at the history of art in the Western world, where the support is you are going to find art being made, whether that support is coming from banks or businessmen. Now, we’re finding casinos with the money, and they are investing in art and culture.” Christian Science Monitor 04/27/01

ANOTHER DOTCOM CASUALTY: Last year, as everyone was getting into the dotcom business, the Museum of Modern Art and the Tate Museum announced a joint web project. So where is it? The project’s been dissolved… The New York Times 04/27/01 (one-time registration required for access)

OUT IN PUBLIC AGAIN: A Monet haystack painting unseen in public since 1895 has resurfaced and is to be sold at auction in June. The Telegraph (UK) 04/27/01

SMITHSONIAN TURMOIL: Lawrence Small, a former investment banker who was president of Fannie Mae, is only the second non-scientist to lead the Smithsonian in more than 150 years. But his leadership so far has riled almost everyone. “In the short 15 months since he assumed that office he has become what is surely the most reviled and detested administrator in the Institution’s history.” Washington Post 04/27/01

DR DEATH’S DISAPPEARING ACT: An exhibition of the paintings of euthanasiaist Dr. Jack Kevorkian has been canceled. The paintings were reported stolen earlier this week, but in fact had just been removed. The owner of the gallery where they were hund felt the show was too controversial. Hartford Courant 04/26/01

Thursday April 26

IS THE BUST A BUST? A marble bust on display at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art was suddenly and quietly removed a few weeks ago. Now some critics “want to know why, if the museum was so confident the bust was genuine, did it take the piece down so quickly and refuse to provide evidence to back up its claims?” Forbes.com 04/26/01

STEAMED BACON: Francis Bacon’s estate has filed suit against the artist’s former gallery, alleging “undue influence” and breach of duty in a claim which could be worth £100 million The estate claims Marlborough kept up to 70 percent of the revenue from sales it made. BBC 04/25/01

SUBLIME. INDEED. VERY SUBLIME: A few months ago, Robert Gober’s drawing of a sink sold for $56,000. The sink itself sold for $830,000. “The sinks, without their metal plumbing, emphasize the plain forms that we come into contact with on a daily basis, but are largely unaware of. Gober’s hand-made versions quickly put us in touch with the mundane, but somehow make us think of the sublime.” Artnet.com 04/26/01

Wednesday April 25

NUDE CHRIST COVERED: Workers at a new terminal at New York’s Kennedy Airport complained about a mural in the terminal that included a tiny naked Christ. So the artist has touched up the painting, covering the controversial anatomy. The New York Times (AP) 04/25/01 (one-time registration required)

HYPE OVER CRITICISM: How many Guggenheims are too many? Hard to say. Director Thomas Krens suggests there may one day as many Goog outposts as there are Starbuck’s. The museum buildings themselves have become as big an attraction as the art inside. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 04/24/01

HOPING FOR A BLOCKBUSTER: The Art Gallery of Ontario is hoping that a new exhibition of pieces on loan from Russia’s famed Hermitage museum will go a long way towards retiring its $6.24 million debt. But the gallery isn’t simply hoping that the crowds will come – it is spending a bundle to make sure they do. The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 04/25/01

A HIT WITH THE CROWDS: Though its former curator continues to criticize it, Australia’s Museum of Contemporary Art had its most successful year last year, with a 74 percent increase in attendance. Sydney Morning Herald 04/25/01

3 = FUSCHIA: When Dan Robbins invented “paint-by-numbers” kits in the 1950s, he had no idea that his creation would become a cultural phenomenon, with everyone from young children to Hollywood celebrities getting sucked into the “make-your-own-Matisse” craze. The hobby fell out of fashion some time ago, but a new Smithsonian exhibition is evidence of a comeback. Chicago Tribune 04/25/01

ARE THOSE JELLY KRIMPETS? Anyone not native to Philadelphia is unlikely to see the allure of prepackaged, preservative-injected snack cakes being used as the subject of serious paintings. But to those who grew up with the endless varieties of Tastykake® available in the City of Brotherly Love, nothing could be more natural. Philadelphia Daily News 04/25/01

Tuesday April 24

FAKE STOLEN TURNERS: It looked like two Turners stolen from the Tate were finally about to be returned. But at the “drop” it was obvious the canvases were fakes. “They weren’t just bad fakes, they were awful. It became clear the whole thing was just a scam by two chancers.” The Guardian (UK) 04/23/01

THE BUSINESS OF MUSEUMS: “In recent years, California politicians have learned that providing the home folks with swimming pools and firetrucks would win them front-page publicity, which is why the state budget has been saturated with such items. But perhaps the most intriguing form of contemporary pork barrel spending is an explosion of state-financed museums commemorating one thing or another.” Sacramento Bee 04/23/01

REMEMBER WHEN THIS WAS CONSIDERED ESSENTIAL? Even as schools across America continue to cut back on arts programs viewed as “frills,” museums in the nation’s capital are making a point of creating new ties with students, and strengthening existing programs. Washington Post 04/24/01

NUTTY GENIUS: Le Corbusier may have been a genius at architecture. But he was also completely nuts – indeed, it’s amazing he ever managed to design anything, says a new book. London Evening Standard 04/22/01

HOMAGE OR OPPORTUNISM? The Metropolitan Museum of Art is featuring an exhibition of Jackie Kennedy’s trinkets, gowns, and White House memorabilia in the name of celebrating the late First Lady’s legacy. Even in death, Jackie O’s appeal is undeniable, but is this really the kind of thing that musuems are supposed to be doing? New York Post 04/24/01

THE DOCTOR IS IN: Dr. Jack Kevorkian, incarcerated in a Michigan prison for helping multiple people to commit suicide, is not doing much to rehabilitate his image as “Dr. Death” with a new exhibition of six of his paintings at a Connecticuit museum. The works are horrifying, if cartoonish, glimpses into a world of terror, violence, and bloodlust, and even the museum’s owner is taken aback by them. Hartford Courant 04/24/01

GLORIFYING BERLIN: Eduard Gärtner was one of the world’s great urban landscape painters in an era before the world cared about urban landscapes. A massive new retrospective of his work, which fills a four-story gallery in Berlin, traces the rise of Germany’s capital city in artistic and architectural terms. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 04/23/01

THAT WILD AND CRAZY ART… Steve Martin gets a show of his art collection in Las Vegas. What’s it like? “The collection is uneven, as are most personal collections, so called to distinguish them from those formed with museum or other expertise. And it lacks focus, as many personal collections do. In fact, its scattershot quality might lead one to believe that Mr. Martin is very much an impulse buyer.” The New York Times 04/24/01 (one-time registration required for access)

Monday April 23

AIN’T IT GRAND: Venice is planning a new bridge across the Grand Canal. “The design by Spanish architect, Santiago Calatrava, combines an innovative shape with a span of 83 metres and a width of nine. It will be the only bridge in Venice to be illuminated at night.” It should be completed by next year. The Art Newspaper 04/23/01

TV SHOW SETS UP ARTISTS/CRITICS: British TV show takes a decorator and gives him a four-week crash course in contemporary art, then passes him off to critics. They’re fooled. The Observer (UK) 04/22/01

LOST TURNERS ARE STILL LOST: For seven years, the Tate Gallery has been hoping to recover the two Turners that were stolen while on loan in Germany. Then a call came, saying the thieves had been arrested and the paintings recovered, undamaged. One look at the recovered art work, however, was enough to convince experts that, whatever they were, Turner had not painted them. The Guardian (London) 04/23/01

CAN WE TALK? “In recent decades what one might have imagined as a conversation between those who look at a work of art and say, ‘It’s beautiful’ or ‘It’s new,’ and those who say, ‘But what is beauty?’ or ‘But what is newness?’, has become very different. Basically, there is no conversation. There is hardly even a debate. Instead there is a rancorous face-off. There are theorists on one side and appreciators on the other side, and when they look at one another all they see is cartoons.” The New Republic 04/20/01

SHOULD COLLECTIONS BE OPEN? Few museums have more than a tiny fraction of their permanent collections on display at any one time. But some museums are trying to make more of their collections available. Some laud the new openness. Others think it a bad idea. “Big collections are treasures, but you have to put it in some context people can relate to. The public wants stories – they don’t want row upon row of stuff.” US News 04/30/01

LOSING THE INITIATIVE: Have other media surpassed traditional visual arts? Jean-Christophe Ammann, director of the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt thinks so: “The problem is that artists today react rather than act. With all the media available to them, they have somehow still failed to create valid and uniquely identifiable models.” The Art Newspaper 04/20/01

Sunday April 22

NEW MUSEUM OF SPAM: Sited in a former K-Mart store in Austin, Minnesota, the 20,000sq ft museum will have a cinema telling the story of Spam and a cafe serving such delicacies as Spam fritters.” The Telegraph (UK) 04/21/01

• CELEBRATING THE TUBE STEAK: There are two kinds of American cities – those with a hot dog stand on every corner, and those without. Chicago is decidedly one of the “withs,” and a local photographer has put together an exhibit memorializing thirty of the city’s best. Chicago Sun-Times 04/22/01

MUSEUM DIRECTOR COMMITS SUICIDE: The director of museums in Merseyside, England, knighted by the Queen last year for his service, filled his pockets with sand and drowned himself. “He was desperately overworked. He was worried that he was not in control of everything that he should have been.” The Times (London) 04/21/01

CROSS-CULTURE SATURATION: The U.K. is about to be saturated with Japanese culture in a major way. A year’s worth of exhibitions and festivals around the country will attempt to decipher the world’s most enigmatic national combination of Eastern and Western traditions, and, in the process, win some new fans for Kabuki and Shinto. The Telegraph (London) 04/21/01

JUST TRY TO LOOK AWAY: Spencer Tunick is either an artistic visionary or a gimmicky phenomenon, depending on who you’re asking. The photographer, who has gained notoriety in recent years for “performances” in which he snaps pictures of large numbers of naked models in public places, is bringing his act to Montreal, and the debate is on again over whether this is art. The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 04/21/01

MUSIC IN THE BACKGROUND: A new installation art piece in Pittsburgh purports to use music as a context rather than a focus. The works on display look more like office furniture than the makings of a symphony, and the sounds produced by the dot-matrix printers, unmanned turntables, and other everyday objects, are music in the service of the visual message. Or is it the other way around? Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 04/22/01

Friday April 20

LOOTING WITH THE INTERNET: Archeological sites “across Florida have been looted over the years, but now some experts say the incidents may be on the rise, in part because of the Internet. Some Web sites offer detailed instructions where to find the artifacts and how to retrieve them.” St. Petersburg Times 04/18/01

EXISTENTIAL ANGST: “Last year, for the first time ever, American museums attracted more than a billion visitors. As they have become more marketable properties, some museums have begun to behave in more commercial ways. And to the consternation of many old-school curators, it is a business strategy that seems to be working.” The Economist 04/19/01

TOO MUCH AVANT, NOT ENOUGH GARDE: Most of the work by Russian avant-garde painter Lisitsky wound up in Europe and America. So the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg was delighted to get three Lisitskys for a current exhibit. Delighted, that is, until the experts started looking closely. Two of the three appear to be fakes. Moscow Times 04/19/01

PUBLIC ART AT A REMOVE: Twelve years ago a Bay Area artist erected “91 painted aluminum rods on a median strip in the middle of Contra Costa’s largest city.” The public art was panned, and the rods were removed for safety. But a California law prohibits removing public art without the consent of the artist, and the city, which wants to install a turning lane where the base of the rods sits, is negotiating with the artist. SFGate 04/18/01

THE NEXT BUILDING FAD? Architect Bill Price had an idea – transluscent concrete, and it may change the next new building you work in. “The need was that the translucent material be pourable – and that once solidified it support weight, absorb shock, insulate, and endure as well as or better than traditional concrete.” Metropolis 04/01

Thursday April 19

RIGHTING ANOTHER WRONG: As the debate continues over whether museums have an obligation to “repatriate” works of pillaged, stolen, or smuggled art, another return is being made. Japan’s Miho Museum (near Kyoto) will return to China a stolen Buddhist statue valued at $813,000. The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 04/19/01

DEPARTMENT STORE ART (WITH A TWIST): For the month of May a London store will be “made over to deliver a Tokyo experience, from food to fashion, lift girls to a 24-hour convenience store. At the heart of the event is an art project, which brings together the work of some of the city’s leading contemporary artists in a show that explores the intriguing no-man’s-land between art and Mammon.” The Times (UK) 04/19/01

TATE GETS A NEW LIBRARY: “A new library hosting thousands of letters, photographs and papers relating to British artists is to be built in the Tate Britain gallery. It will showcase previously unseen documents from leading artists of the past century.” BBC 04/19/01

MEINE FREUD: Australia’s National Gallery wants to acquire a Lucien Freud painting for $8 million. The museum has the Cezanne work on which the Freud is based. But is the painting only masking a host of problems with the management of the museum? Still, the painting is worth having, say some. Sydney Morning Herald 04/19/01

WELL WORTH THE WAIT: “It’s taken 50 years. But after a handsome and intelligent $4 million renovation, the Baltimore Museum of Art’s Cone Collection has emerged at last as a warmhearted treasure trove of modern art.” Washington Post 04/19/01

RESTORE THIS: The 3rd-century wall in Rome that collapsed earlier this week was thought to have been restored last year. Turns out it had only been “cleared of weeds.” CBC 04/18/01

SCOTTISH STRIKE: Scotland’s national museums may be forced to close as attendants go on strike. The Times (UK) 04/19/01

THE HEADLESS PIPER: Are Scotland’s castles haunted? Some “240 volunteers were sent into the cells of Edinburgh Castle — one time home of 17th century French prisoners of war — and cellars in the bowels of the medieval ‘Old Town.’ Nearly half the guinea pigs, drawn from visitors from across the globe, reported ghostly goings-on, although few were more hair-raising than a sudden drop in temperature, a few uncomfortable drafts or a feeling of being watched.” Discovery 04/18/01

PARKIN’ IT IN PITTSBURGH: “Too often, parking garages are a pox on the modern city — self-centered, brutal intrusions that thumb their noses at neighborhood context and contribute nothing to the life of the street. They don’t have to be necessary evils, as two recently completed projects on opposite sides of the Allegheny River demonstrate.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 04/19/01

Wednesday April 18

THE NEXT BIG THING? Some critics say there’s no such thing as digital art. Some museums and curators say different. Now that digital has hit the Whitney and SFMOMA, can artworld credibility be far behind? ArtsJournal.com 04/18/01

CONTEMPORARY ART AS VICTIM: TV commercials have found a new whipping boy: Beer, credit cards, and fast food are all taking shots at modern art, or modern artists. Why? Advertisers assume their audiences are people who “believe that art is pretty much one big scam put over on decent people by smirky East Coast cultural cadres.” Slate 04/16/01

IF ONLY WE HAD A FREUD: Australia’s National Portrait Gallery says the painting it is in most dire need of – something that will make its collection of 20th Century art – is a Lucien Freud. So it’s trying to raise $8 million to buy one from the artist. “There’s no doubt that Lucien Freud is one of the greatest 20th century figurative painters.” The Age (Melbourne) 04/18/01

EBAY SHILL BIDDERS COP A PLEA: Two men who placed hundreds of bids on their own eBay offerings – including a fake Richard Diebenkorn painting – have pleaded guilty to fraud. They’ve agreed to compensate other bidders and to cooperate with federal prosecutors. A third man indicted in the scheme is still at large. CNET (AP) 04/17/01

LOVED AWAY FROM HOME: Last year the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum closed for a four-year, $211 million renovation. The “often overlooked American Art Museum has been using its homelessness to take to the road with eight simultaneous traveling exhibitions featuring 514 of its most acclaimed works.” And it’s finding appreciation that it often hasn’t enjoying back in Washington DC. The New York Times 04/18/01 (one-time registration required for access)

RETURN TO CHINA: A Japanese museum says “that one of its masterpieces, a rare Buddhist statue from China, is one that was stolen from Shandong Province, China, in 1994.” It is returning the art to China. The New York Times 04/18/01 (one-time registration required for access)

Tuesday April 17

FALLING MUSEUM ATTENDANCE: A few weeks ago the British government released attendance figures for major national museums that showed business is booming. But when attendance for museums in general around the UK are measured, the numbers are down. In fact, the number of people visiting museums last year dropped about 7 percent – a “cause for concern.” The Independent (London) 04/17/01

ALL PUBLICITY IS GOOD PUBLICITY: “Santa Fe Archbishop Michael Sheehan and other Roman Catholics on Monday urged the removal of a photo collage by Los Angeles artist Alma Lopez from Santa Fe’s state-run Museum of International Folk Art, saying the work depicted the Virgin Mary as ‘a tart.'” Los Angeles Times (first item) 04/17/01

THAT’S NOT MY MUMMY: A Persian mummy, discovered last October in Pakistan and thought to be 2,600 years old, has now been declared an elaborate and modern fake. The case has turned into a murder investigation. Time 04/16/01

ROMAN WALL FALL: A section of Rome’s ancient city wall built in the 3rd century crumbled this week after heavy rains. BBC 04/16/01

PARTY ON DUDE: The Victoria & Albert Museum has been an underperformer in London’s museum scene. Now a report charges that the V&A’s security guards are routinely drunk and incompetent guarding artwork. “Security was so haphazard that at one private party visitors were seen sniffing cocaine off the base of Canova’s sculpture The Three Graces, one of the most renowned in the museum and worth at least £10 million.” Sunday Times (London) 04/15/01

Monday April 16

NY MUSEUM ATTENDANCE DROPS: The slowing US economy has hit New York museums. “At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, there were 200,000 fewer visitors from November to February when compared with the same time a year earlier, an 11 percent attendance decline. Industry observers blame the economy, which has scared away penny-pinching tourists. Two years ago, museums were at full capacity even during off-peak months.” New York Post 04/16/01

SMART TO STEAL ART: “Ever since puritanical Taleban rulers in Kabul began smashing ancient artefacts last month, smugglers and merchants have become the last line of defence against the extinction of a country’s archeological legacy. Indeed, dealers are working overtime to make the most of Afghanistan’s lost heritage, before the trail gets cold across the Khyber Pass.” Toronto Star 04/16/01

MICHELANGELO’S ROME: An Italian art expert has reconstructed the Rome that Michelangelo knew, based on reading the artists notes and correspondence. “Michelangelo’s Rome has been altered radically since the Renaissance, but armed with contemporary records and maps Filippo Tuena has found doorways, chapels and tombs that have gone largely unnoticed in one of the most photographed square miles in the world.” The Times (London) 04/15/01

ART WHOSE OWNERS YOU’VE HEARD OF: Celebrities selling off their art collections and getting good prices. “The numbers of actors who have great collections may not be enormous, but the number of actors and celebrities who can add glamour to mundane objects is considerable.” The Telegraph (London) 04/16/01

TOWER OF POWER: In Romania, controversy mars the restoration of a prominent Brancusi sculture. New York Times 04/16/01 (one-time registration required for access)

Sunday April 15

ALL ABOUT THE CONTEXT: The British Museum’s new show about Cleopatra and Antony promised to be a blockbuster. The art is spectacular. But “this is an oppressive and cynical exercise, an unholy alliance of marketing and scholarship. The degree to which this show makes a sow’s ear out of one of history’s finest silk purses is spectacular.” The Guardian (London) 04/15/01

NEGOTIATING YOURSELF OUT OF A JOB: Declan McGonagle, the long-serving director of the Irish Museum of Modern Art has been at odds with the museum’s board. Last fall he sued the board when they advertised his job. Now McGonagle has won a contract offer from the board, which he then turned down so he can discuss a separation agreement… Sunday Times 04/15/01

Friday April 13

AFTER THE BUST: In the 1980s rich Japanese investors bought up some of the world’s highest profile art. But then the Japanese economy went bust. Now some of the treasures are coming back on the market. Forbes.com 04/12/01

HIP TODAY, GONE TOMORROW: It’s difficult for galleries to keep up with their hipness quotient and still stay solvent. “These are difficult times for high-end galleries that not only want to make money (that seems to be the easier part, even in our days of downturn) but maintain some art-world street cred as well.” MSNBC 04/12/01

TALIBAN, TAKE NOTE: Destruction of cultural property, acknowledged as a crime nearly half a century ago, has finally been sanctioned by an international tribunal. The International Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia has found the Yugoslav air force guilty of the destruction of historic monuments for its bombing of Dubrovnik ten years ago. The Art Newspaper 04/13/01

SAVE THOSE OLD PAPER NEGATIVES: They aren’t common in the US, but if you happen to find one in your attic (or someone else’s), hang onto it. Paper negatives from the middle of the nineteenth century are highly-prized, and highly-priced. “Starting at $5,000, they can easily climb to $75,000 or above for especially early or rare examples.” Forbes 04/11/01

Thursday April 12

O’KEEFFE CONTROVERSY: “A New Mexico man who once lived with noted western artist Georgia O’Keeffe has registered a copyright for 16 paintings once attributed to her. But there are significant questions about whether Jacobo Suazo or O’Keeffe actually painted the works.” Washington Post (AP) 04/11/01

RIGHTING A MYSTERIOUS WRONG: “The National Gallery of Canada is about to return to China a stolen 1,300-year-old Buddhist limestone carving surreptitiously chiselled from the wall of a temple cave some time during the last century…The figure was vandalized from a full-bodied image of an arhat found in Kanjing Si Temple.” Ottawa Citizen 04/12/01

ART AND THE UNHAPPY NEIGHBORS: New York’s Metropolitan Museum is embarking on a 12-year $200 million renovation. Neighbors aren’t pleased at the prospect of living with the construction. “And if their concerns run toward the mundane—they’re worried about noise, dust and the deleterious effects of an influx of construction workers (and their trucks) into the neighborhood—the Met’s executives have reason for concern. Their neighbors are angry, they are rich and they have lawyers.” New York Observer 04/11/01

THE LOTTERY LOBBY: Are national lotteries the 21^st-century’s answer to struggling arts sectors and the rampant export of cultural treasures? Pierre Rosenberg, who retires Thursday after seven years as director of the Louvre, has proposed creating a French lottery to help safeguard the country’s artistic heritage from being sold abroad. New York Times 4/12/01 (one-time registration required for access)

MARIA GAETANA MATISSE HAS DIED at age 58 in New York. Widow of Henri Matisse’s son Pierre, she was a longtime New York gallery owner and influential modern art patron. New Jersey Online (AP) 4/11/01

Wednesday April 11

DAMAGED LOANER: A Gainsborough painting on loan from the National Gallery of Scotland to the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in the US was damaged while hanging in the Tennessee museum. The painting was on loan from Scotland’s national collection in Edinburgh. The Guardian (London) 04/10/01

• THE RENTALS: Scotland’s National Gallery needs money. So “the colourful director-general of the National Galleries of Scotland, has rented out 50 of the country’s greatest masterpieces to America in a bid to fund a planned £26 million revamp of the Royal Scottish Academy. Works by Goya, El Greco, Gainsborough, Constable, Sir Henry Raeburn and Canaletto, have been sent to Memphis, Tennessee. Scotland on Sunday 04/08/01

HOME SWEET HOME: “If you want to understand an artist, first find out where he lived and worked, what he saw outside his studio window, and whom he might have met on his way to the pub. Only when you’ve located artists such as Hogarth, Sickert or Gilbert and George in Covent Garden, Camden Town, or the East End do you fully grasp what they are doing in their art.” The Telegraph (London) 04/11/01

HE SAID/HE SAID: More stories about the squabbles among Australia’s National Gallery leadership director Brian Kennedy and former curator John MacDonald. MacDonald’s turn: “I am concerned that there’s a perception that I am some sort of lazy or recalcitrant person when in fact I feel I was doing everything in my power. Things I did not do I avoided doing for what I thought were perfectly good and ethical reasons.” Sydney Morning Herald 04/11/01

TOO MUCH ATTENTION: Is the Brooklyn Museum’s Yo Mama photograph Catholic bashing? Not at all – it has more to do with a “form of zealous howling” going on in the media and elsewhere. Why is it so easy to get attention this way? American Prospect 04/23/01

£24,000 FOR BEAUTIFUL BLONDES: Britain’s richest art prize goes this year to an artist who says he paints “beautiful blonde girls on park benches.” Tim Stoner collects the £24,000 Beck’s Futures Award. “His paintings depict a seemingly worryless world… a vision of consumerist paradise. But it doesn’t take long before the dark undertones of his idealised world… become apparent”. Guardian 04/11/01

BLIND ARTIST DOING WELL, THANK YOU: We have Beethoven to prove that a person can lose hearing and still compose music. But an artist who cannot see? “Lisa Fittipaldi is a rising star in the art world. Her work is sold through the biggest gallery in the United States and routinely fetches thousands of dollars. Many of those who buy her work are unaware that the artist has never seen it.” The Telegraph (London) 04/11/01

TOO MUCH ATTENTION: Is the Brooklyn Museum’s Yo Mama photograph Catholic bashing? Not at all – it has more to do with a “form of zealous howling” going on in the media and elsewhere. Why is it so easy to get attention this way? American Prospect 04/23/01

HIS ART, BUT NOT EXACTLY HIS IDEA: Glenn Brown’s painting “The Loves of Shepherds 2000” was exhibited at the Tate as a candidate for the £21,000 Turner Prize. Then someone noticed it was an almost-identical copy of the cover art on a 1974 science fiction paperback. Now the paper-back cover artist is suing. The Tate, caught in the middle, explains that “Brown’s images were ‘never direct replicas but have been cleverly manipulated’, and that Brown merely appropriated ideas.” London Times 04/10/01

SAARINEN’S TWA TERMINAL MAY COME DOWN: The TWA Flight Center at Kennedy Airport, an official New York City Landmark as well as an architectural milestone, may be demolished to make room for a new United Airlines Terminal. Beautiful it may be, says the Port Authority, but it’s “totally undersized and not equipped to handle modern jets or customers”. The Art Newspaper 04/11/01

Tuesday April 10

AFRICA DOCUMENTED: “Even among scholars, Africa often is dismissed as a continent lacking written records, one of the hallmarks of civilization.” But a discovery of “3,000 manuscripts ranging from letters and fragments of works to complete books and covering a range of subjects that include theology, jurisprudence and history” is changing all that. Chicago Tribune 04/09/01

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: So the Mona Lisa now has a room of its own. What a good idea. It would be better if more paintings could get this kind of treatment. It’s too difficult to see good art in a room crowded with other work… The Times (London) 04/10/01

AN OFFER THEY COULDN’T REFUSE: “Some of Canada’s most successful artists…took advantage of a short-term program at the federal Art Bank to buy back their own works at bargain prices. A one-time, six-month, buy-back scheme ended March 31 this year and resulted so far in 36 artists issuing cheques totalling $225,000 to purchase works originally sold to the Art Bank.” Ottawa Citizen 04/10/01

OUT OF JORDAN: “Hundreds of ancient archaeological sites in Jordan are being plundered by looters looking for treasures, which are then being smuggled out of the country and sold for huge profits in Western cities, including London.” BBC 04/06/01

WHO COUNTS THESE THINGS? “North Carolina has at least 500 full-time potters, more per capita than any other state. For four days at the end of March, Charlotte was probably the ceramics capital of the world when it was host to several thousand potters, among them students and teachers from universities across the country, at the annual conference of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts.” The New York Times 04/10/01 (one-time registration required for access)

Monday April 9

CHINESE CRACKDOWN? Avant garde artists in China, enjoying greater freedom in recent years, were attacked at the recent China National People’s Conference. Cadres “condemned art in blistering terms as a ‘social evil’ on a par with the Falun Dafa cult, and urged that it be crushed in much the same way.” The Art Newspaper 04/09/01

PONDERING VERMEER: Why are we so fascinated with the work of Vermeer? “You would think that veneration so exquisite, verging on the epicene, indicates an object of, well, recherché taste. But anyone with eyes can go goofy over this or that little patch of something in Vermeer.” The New Yorker 04/09/01

WHAT STYLE IS THIS? Why do architects dislike talking about style? “While a writer or a painter can be applauded for stylistic ability, calling an architect a stylist is considered faint praise. And nothing enrages an architect as much as being categorized.” Saturday Night 04/07/01

DIGGING DIGITAL: “Computer art promises the moon, and there is probably a segment of the public for whom that promise is more interesting than any work of art, computer-generated or otherwise, that they have ever seen.” But what is it, exactly? The New Republic 04/09/01

• DIGITAL CREDIBILITY: “Despite uncertainty surrounding what it means to own, exhibit, create, or simply view works, computer-aided art is gaining credibility from collectors and institutions, who are not only buying it but commissioning it too.” ArtNews 04/01

THE COLLECTING GAME: No collectors’ market for photography? Enter the concept of “vintage” print – prints made from a negative shortly after the image was created. Prices have zoomed. “For a market to thrive, purchasers have to feel that they are buying something special. Vintage prints are certainly rarer than more modern ones, but whether they are any better is open to question.” The Telegraph (London) 04/09/01

SHIPWRECK ART HORDE: A discovery of a Chinese shipwreck from 1000 years ago is changing the story of Chinese art. Forbes.com 04/09/01

RUSSIAN CORPSES FOR ART? The Russian government is investigating whether some of the human bodies used by a doctor in Berlin for an art exhibit were Siberian prisoners. Moscow Times 04/09/01

• Previously: DEADLY ART: In Germany an art exhibition of dead people preserved by plastination. “Plastination is a preservation process by which the body’s water content is drained and replaced, first by super-chilled acetone, then by plastic. Over decades, von Hagens collected hundreds of corpses from voluntary donors, mostly from China, refining the plastination technique and honing his sculptural skills. The culmination of these scientific and artistic labors is Body Worlds, which has traveled to Vienna, Cologne, Basle, Tokyo and, now, Berlin.” Feed 04/04/01

Sunday April 8

AUSSIE RIP-OFF? Architect Daniel Libeskind has accused the architect of the new National Museum of Australia in Canberra of copying his design for the Jewish museum in Berlin. “At first, I thought it was a joke. Not a proportion, not an angle of the Jewish museum has been changed.” Canberra Times (Australia) 04/08/01

SAVE THAT ART: They can straighten the Tower of Pisa, save The Last Supper and bring color back to the Sistine Chapel. Are restorers the heroes of Italy’s historic art? Globe & Mail (Canada) 04/07/01

ART OF AFRICA: African art has long fascinated Westerners. But how to display it, stripped of its context and intentions in a Western museum? Museums have a range of answers. Boston Globe 04/08/01

REMOVING OFFENSIVE MURALS: A British Columbia government report recommends removing murals depicting pioneer days from the walls of the provincial legislature. “Native leaders say the murals, which recreate scenes of white settlers and natives in British Columbia between 1795 and 1843, are historically inaccurate and offensive.” Globe & Mail (Canada) 04/07/01

Friday April 6

OUT TO SILENCE THE CENSOR: Artists, academics, and free-speech advocates have banded together to publicly denounce New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s creation of a “decency commission” to evaluate all the art the city funds. “Giuliani has lost 20 of 21 First Amendment court cases during his two terms as mayor, and advocates said the mayor was pushing the envelope again. ‘He has the gall to start all over again,’ said artist Hans Haacke, ‘as if he had never been slapped down.” ABC News 4/05/01

CHILLIN’ AT THE V&A: Facing increasing scrutiny from the UK culture secretary and hoping to “dispel its fusty maiden aunt image forever,” the Victoria and Albert Museum gave the public its first glimpse of its plans for new £31m British Galleries, which are scheduled to open in November. “The most surprising change of all though will be a set of ‘chill-out’ rooms at the end of each block of galleries, where weary visitors can lounge ‘and let it all sink in.’” The Guardian (London) 4/06/01

GOT A GOYA? The director of Madrid’s Prado Museum has rejected claims raised by the museum’s top Goya expert that two of its famous paintings (both currently on loan to foreign exhibitions) are not the work of Spanish master Francisco de Goya. “Opinions to the contrary must come in scientific publications and a thoroughly worked catalogue.” CNN 4/05/01

IT’S ALL IN HOW YOU LOOK AT IT: Think once you’ve seen a painting in a museum you’ve seen it? Maybe not. “Today, with modern-day museums’ harsh, bright lights illuminating the works of artists, the colors and perspective are often lost, as well as the context of the time period in which the artists were working.” Wired 04/06/01

A CENTURY AT THE CENTER: London’s Whitechapel Art Gallery celebrates its centenary this spring – a good time to reflect on the enormous role the gallery has played in promoting 20^th-century British art. “It has the inestimable advantage of being daylit and is a favourite of artists who feel at home as if in some impossibly lovely studio.” The Telegraph (London) 4/06/01

DEVOTED TO DIGITAL: When he steps down as Harvard’s president in June, Neil Rudenstine plans to devote his time to a project to create a mammoth digital collection of images of art, architecture, and design. “The aim was to create a kind of ‘public utility’ for art that would present high quality images, catalog them and link them to scholarly information.” New York Times 4/05/01 (one-times registration required)

Thursday April 5

NO SALE: The Taliban say they will punish anyone trying to sell fragments of the destroyed Bamiyan Buddhas. “Taliban officials dismissed media reports that truckloads of rubble from the historic Bamiyan Buddhas were for sale in neighbouring Pakistan.” CBC 04/04/01

VERMEER OR NOT VERMEER: Is there a new Vermeer or not? Hard to tell yet, but “why have the Vermeer people not learned the Rembrandt lesson? It is this simple: The lesson has never been taught. The Rembrandt Research Project has never come to terms in public with its original mistake.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 04/04/01

WELSH CENTRE GETS THE GO-AHEAD: After months of debate and delay, the Welsh Assembly has given its permission for construction to begin on a national arts centre in Cardiff Bay. The Wales Millenium Centre has an estimated price tag of £92 million. BBC 04/05/01

STERNER STUFF: Contemporary art is often not made of durable materials. So how to conserve? “The question is a hot one at museums around the country, as institutions ranging from Harvard University to the Whitney Museum of American Art to the Guggenheim grapple with the conservation of contemporary art.” The New York Times 04/05/01 (one-times registration required)

CANADIAN FIREBRAND: Vancouver’s Contemporary Art Gallery is getting a new leader, and if past performance is any indication, Christina Ritchie’s reign will be anything but boring. “[W]hile Ritchie can come across as the very epitome of pre-Cambrian gruffness, she is also one of the Canadian art world’s wittiest subversives, with a seductive voice that she uses to dish, always saying less than you long to know, but with a provocative lift of the eyebrow that keeps you waiting for more.” The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 04/05/01

MINIMALLY MOBY? “Critics have been, to say the least, divided about what happened to the art of Frank Stella. Right now, art is in a swing back to the minimalist objective art of the 1960s; artists are acclaimed for their starkness, and Stella’s early work looks modern in a way that his later work does not.” So why has he spent the last 15 years pondering Moby Dick? The Guardian (London) 04/05/01

VIRTUAL LANDSCAPES: “Yesterday representatives from [Mexico, the United States and Canada] launched an online art show called Panoramas: The North American Landscape in Art. This show doesn’t really exist anywhere except in cyberspace. It brings together more than 300 works of landscape art from galleries in [the three countries].” CBC 04/04/01

MOVING MONA: The Louvre has moved the Mona Lisa to a room of its own. “The Mona Lisa is a pride and joy for us, but it’s also a problem because the museum’s 6 million visitors all want to see the painting.” The hope is that the other paintings in the room Mona Lisa used to hang will now get some attention. Nando Times 04/04/01

DEADLY ART: In Germany an art exhibition of dead people preserved by plastination. “Plastination is a preservation process by which the body’s water content is drained and replaced, first by super-chilled acetone, then by plastic. Over decades, von Hagens collected hundreds of corpses from voluntary donors, mostly from China, refining the plastination technique and honing his sculptural skills. The culmination of these scientific and artistic labors is Body Worlds, which has traveled to Vienna, Cologne, Basle, Tokyo and, now, Berlin.” Feed 04/04/01

HOW TO DISPLAY A BLOCKHEAD: St. Paul, Minnesota will soon be covered with a veritable gaggle of Charlie Brown sculptures, the latest in the wave of copycat art-animal-parades. But what to do with all the little round-headed kids after the novelty wears off? A local columnist has a few suggestions, including a Brooklyn-style Chuck covered with elephant dung. St. Paul Pioneer Press 04/05/01

Wednesday April 4

GUGGENHEIM GOES SOUTH: “The Guggenheim Museum will erect arts facilities in four Brazilian cities, officials said Monday, bringing an end to heated competition for the first Latin American affiliate of the New York-based arts organization.” Chicago Tribune 04/04/01

REINVENT, OR ELSE: Long criticized for its stuffy image and poor organization, London’s Victoria & Albert Museum has been officially put on notice. “Its new director has until October to convince the culture secretary that he has found a way of redefining the world’s greatest and most disparate collection of decorative art so that visitors can make sense of it. Until then, the plan for a daring £80m spiral extension designed by architect Daniel Liebeskind – which has already missed out on lottery funds – should be put on hold.” The Guardian (London) 4/03/01

STENCH OF DESPERATION: “The Academy of Art College has managed to insinuate itself into the consciousness of San Franciscans as a legitimate art school through advertising, prominent campuses, and a fleet of logoed, navy blue buses that endlessly plies the downtown area. But there’s rot within… [and the] owners have assembled a family real estate empire by taking advantage of society’s most desperate prey: those who dream of someday becoming artists.” S.F. Weekly 04/04/01

THE POLITICS OF SAVING ART: The urge to conserve works art is powerful (witness worldwide outcries over the Taliban’s destruction of art). But increasingly the question has to be asked: Conserve what? And for what? Conservation often has more to do with the present than the past. ArtsJournal.com 04/04/01

THE IMAX EFFECT: Photographs seem to be getting larger and larger – witness recent exhibits by Andreas Gursky, Nan Goldin, Wolfgang Tillmans, and other contemporary photographers, in which prints measure in feet, not inches. “Although big photography isn’t entirely new (Richard Avedon, who has been making outsize prints since 1962, first showed his life-size group portrait of the Chicago Seven in 1970), its ubiquity and prominence is. But when virtually everyone is striving for new levels of drop-dead monumentality, size loses its power to wow and becomes almost beside the point.” Village Voice 4/10/01

SIGNS OF A SLUMP: New York’s annual Asia Week events – six Asian art auctions followed by two large Asian art fairs – are a good barometer of overall collector enthusiasm and willingness to spend. This year it seems the purse strings are gathered tight, perhaps in response to Wall Street’s recent slide. There are plenty of visitors and a lot of looking, but surprisingly little buying. Financial Review 4/03/01

CONVICTS’ CANVAS: A day after New York governor George Pataki ordered that violent criminals be banned from showing and selling their art at an annual state-sponsored inmates’ art show, the work is up and creating quite a stir. Victims’ families are particularly outraged, since the convicts are entitled to keep 50% of the proceeds. Salon (AP) 4/03/01

ALWAYS AN ACTOR’S ACTOR: The contents of John Gielgud’s estate will be auctioned this week at Sotheby’s in London, followed by the sale of Ralph Richardson’s belongings on April 27. Proceeds from the two auctions will go mainly to charities for actors. New York Times 4/04/01 (one-time registration required)

“GARFIELD” THIS ISN’T: If you are already acquainted with Jimmy Corrigan (the smartest kid on earth, you know,) there is no need for you to click on this link. But if the graphic novels of Chris Ware are unfamiliar to you, read on to learn about the man who is simultaneously reinvigorating the world of alternative comics and taking the publishing world by storm. New York Times 04/04/01 (one-time registration required)

Tuesday April 3

MUSEUM ATTENDANCE SOARS: The British government releases attendance figures for museums. There was a “20 per cent increase in the number of visitors to the 17 national galleries and museums in England it is responsible for funding. The total number of visits rose from 23.7 million in 1999 to 28.4 million in 2000. But the Tate Modern accounted for 4 million of the extra 5 million visitors to the national collections last year.” The Independent (London) 04/03/01

HOW TO COLLECT? Digital art seems to be gathering a critical mass with museums. “The commitment of these museums to new media has prompted debates on the issues of collecting and conserving digital media, even though there is currently little commercial support for the creation and production of net art. Without a real market for collecting on-line projects, some seminal works have changed hands for as little as $100 but also an indication of the economic uncertainty net artists face.” The Art Newspaper 04/02/01

• Previously: THE END OF DIGITAL ART? Digital art has hit the big time in terms of recognition now that major museums are showcasing it. But “just as dot.com was always a fatuous category, lumping together media, corporate services, and infrastructure companies into one ‘industry,’ digital art is a category of convenience that should be retired.” Feed 03/27/01

YO MAMA’S NEXT OPPORTUNITY: Has the Mayor of New York – in a fit of religious indignation – managed to destroy the career of a young artist? Not likely. ArtNews 04/01

TALL TALES: London is about to get some seriously tall buildings, including Renzo Piano’s 1000-foot-tall spire atop London Bridge Tower. But serious questions need to be asked. “Piano has designed more surpassingly beautiful buildings than any other living architect, but this design has yet to match the originality and sensitivity of his best work.” The Times (London) 04/03/01

PROTECTING THE GIANT BUDDHA: Afghanistan’s giant Buddhas may be destroyed, but China is taking steps to protect the world’s biggest stone Buddha – 72 metres tall – located in Leshan, in Sichuan province. The restoration project will cost $30 million. BBC 04/03/01

NATIONAL CHARACTER: You can tell a lot about a country by its national museums. “New Zealand’s public history is often characterised by a sense of unease, disapproval, and even guilt about our past.” By contrast, Australia’s new National Museum gives “a sense of respect for Australia’s history, even its dark episodes, seeing it in a broader evolving context.” New Zealand Herald 04/03/01

GOING FOR GREEK: It isn’t just ancient Greek art that is prized by collectors these days. “Collectors are scrambling to get hold of paintings by 19th-century Greek artists, paying prices close to those commanded by European masters.” MSNBC (Reuters) 04/02/01

Monday April 2

CONDONING LOOTING: “The world’s leading cultural guardians have reversed a rigid 30-year-old policy. Unesco joined scholars and a handful of museum curators and cultural preservationists who are trying to take Afghan art threatened by vandalism and looting to safety beyond its borders.” The New York Times 04/02/01 (one-time registration required for access)

ART LOOT AND DRUGS: Who’s buying in Afghanistan’s burgeoning trade in antiquities? “Most of the antiquities are nowadays bought with the proceeds of drug trafficking. Afghanistan provides up to 75% of the world’s heroin. Antiquities are a very useful way of laundering money, since the object is movable, retains its value and can easily be resold. Moreover the traffickers have international networks at their disposal to discreetly transport the antiquities anywhere in the world.” The Art Newspaper 04/01/01

PRITZKER WINNERS: Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, who designed the new Tate Modern museum in London (last year’s star architectural opening), have been chosen winners of this year’s Pritzker, architecture’s top honor. The New York Times 04/02/01 (one-time registration required for access)

HACKING DOWN HISTORY: Madrid’s Prado Museum wants to expand. Last week “one of Madrid’s few 17th-century edifices, the cloisters of the monastery of San Jeronimo el Real,” which sit adjacent to the museum, was hacked to pieces to make way for the expansion. “The demolition raises serious questions about the Spanish government’s ability and political will to protect historic monuments.” The Guardian (London) 04/02/01

ENCOURAGING REGIONAL ART: British artists have a new prize, “the biggest visual art prize ever in Britain: £150,000. This prize, called Art to You, dwarfs the Turner, the Jerwood and the Hunting art prizes put together, but it is aimed specifically at regional galleries and museums.” The Times (London) 04/02/01

THE DEFINITION OF GOOD: It isn’t only architects who are responsible for a good building. It takes craftsmen who understand how to build. “The desire to build beautifully is unlikely to go away as long as there is someone around who appreciates taking a straight shaving off a plank, drawing a fine curve without faltering or laying a brick level in its mortar.” The Guardian (London) 04/02/01

UNLIKELY COMMISSION: “Transforming London’s South Bank Centre has proved to be the poisoned chalice of British architectural commissions. Despite its position on the great bend of the Thames, the centre has never really worked, largely because of its deeply flawed post-war planning and architecture. Turning it round has already flummoxed two of Britain’s leading architectural practices.” Can a small husband-and-wife team of architects succeed at the job? The Telegraph (London) 04/02/01

LAUGHING ONLINE: “Cartoonists who find it difficult to get picked up and distributed by a syndicate are going straight to the masses via the Web, where word of mouth can turn an unknown artist into a sensation in matter of days, if not hours.” San Francisco Chronicle 04/02/01

Sunday April 1

SAVING THE BARNES? Pennsylania’s Barnes Collection is in a tight spot. The small collection needs to raise about $50 million to keep going. But most of the proposals to save it would alter the collection’s fundamental qualities. Should the museum be sacrificed to the tourists? Philadelphia Inquirer 04/01/01

TALL THREAT: “Conservation, particularly of historic buildings, was one of the great popular movements of the 20th century. Not a wave of ultra-tall buildings threatens to transform London as much as the whole-scale redevelopment of the Sixties and Seventies. If they are built, these towers, whose scale far exceeds anything so far built in the centre of London, will dominate the capital.” The Telegraph (London) 03/31/01

HOW TO BE A CRITIC: Canada’s Globe & Mail has a new art critic: “The critic, I think, has to give readers enough information that they can formulate some ideas of their own while they read. Also, they must be given a sense of what the work looks like. It’s astonishing how often this gets left out of art reviews.” The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 03/31/01

GOOD GRIEF: Last summer St. Paul Minnesota lined its streets with fiberglass Snoopys decorated by artists. The city made money from them, so this summer it will put out Charlie Browns. “It’s a continuation of our homage to Charles Schulz and what he created,” says Mayor Norm Coleman. “It’s a wonderful thing for the city.” St. Paul Pioneer Press 04/01/01

Friday March 30

AUCTION ENVY: There was heavy security at Sotheby’s in London this week for the display of one of the greatest private collections of 20^th century art to ever hit the auction block. American millionaire Stanley Seeger’s collection will be sold in New York in May, is valued at up to £45 million, and includes works by Picasso, Braques, Francis Bacon, Miro, Egon Schiele, Jasper Johns, and a 1938 self-portrait by Max Beckmann hailed as “the most important German painting to come up for auction in living memory.” The Guardian (London) 3/30/01

Thursday March 29

A NEW LOUVRE DIRECTOR: The French Cabinet has named Musée d’Orsay director and Degas expert Henri Loyrette as the new president of the Louvre. Loyrette will replace Pierre Rosenberg, who after 39 years at the helm of the world’s largest museum is retiring to manage the Palazzo Grassi in Venice. “The task now facing Loyrette is by no means an easy one. With its staff of 2,000, the Louvre is not only a giant culture machine, its very size makes it vulnerable.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 3/29/01

A GERMAN BACKWATER? Nineteenth Century Germany gave us Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms – their music that has dominated our concert halls ever since. But visual art? “Our own most influential modern artists, critics and museum curators have tended in the 20th century to look upon 19th-century Germany as a backwater as far as the visual arts are concerned.” New York Observer 03/28/01

TITIAN ON TOP: The history of Western art is usually traced back to Vasari or Giotto, or even, as some would argue, to 13^th-century Rome or Serbia. “But here’s another proposal: the grand tradition of oil painting, as is develops through Velazquez and Rembrandt down to our own day, springs not from Florence, Rome or Kosovo, but from Venice. And Titian, more than anyone else, is the patriarch at the head of that family tree.” Herewith a take on a newly published book of his complete paintings… The Telegraph (London) 3/29/01

REBUILDING THE BUDDHA: Buddhists in Sri Lanka are trying to raise money to build a replica of the Bamiyan Buddhas demolished by Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban militia. “We have had a very good response so far, not only from Buddhists. Many Muslims have said they are keen to help us because this is not just a religious matter. It’s a part of our world heritage.” The Times of India 03/28/01

DRAWING A MUSEUM LINE: “What is the distinction… between a natural history museum and an art museum? We tend to think of these two institutions as vastly different, but increasingly nowadays they are looking remarkably alike, displaying man-made objects in similar ways and telling similar stories about human culture.” First item. Discover 04/01

THE PHYSICS OF WINSLOW HOMER: “In Homer’s day, thermodynamics was not merely a branch of physics. It was also an instructive social theory central to the works of a wide array of prominent novelists, historians, and philosophers. Perhaps the most explicitly thermo-dynamic of Homer’s pictures is The Gulf Stream, in which power is ubiquitous and man is reduced to an appliance in the naturalist machine.” American Art Spring 2001

DISSING JEFFERSON DAVIS: Graffitti from 140 years ago, uncovered on the wall of an old Virginia courthouse. “May he be put in the northwest corner [of Hell] with a southeast wind blowing ashes in his eyes for all eternity.” CNN (AP) 03/28/01

Wednesday March 28

THE END OF DIGITAL ART? Digital art has hit the big time in terms of recognition now that major museums are showcasing it. But “just as dot.com was always a fatuous category, lumping together media, corporate services, and infrastructure companies into one ‘industry,’ digital art is a category of convenience that should be retired.” Feed 03/27/01

GIOTTO INTERRUPTED: After 12 years of restoration, a Giotto crucifix damaged in the 1966 floods that swept Florence was “due to be returned to its original centre spot in the Florentine church of Santa Maria Novella on April 7.” But a new Italian law has interfered with the plans. Financial Times 03/27/01

RING OF UNCERTAINTY: Korea had planned to build a massive “gate” 200 metres in circumference to mark the turn of the millennium. But now the government has reduced the amount it is willing to spend on the project, and a slow economy is making private fund-raising difficult. Korea Times 03/28/01

WE PREFER SHAKESPEARE’S DESCRIPTION: Of Cleopatra, that is. He wrote, “Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety.” According to a new exhibition at the British Museum, she was short, fat, and unattractive. Discovery 03/26/01

Tuesday March 27

“010101” PAYS OFF IN SAN FRAN: “The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has received a $500,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, making it the only U.S. art museum to receive an NEH Challenge Grant for 2001.” San Francisco Chronicle 03/27/01

GOING BRIT: British artists have become a force in the current New York art scene. “These people are important and the pictures will become gold later on. It will be like looking back on the Warhol crowd.” The Times (London) 03/27/01

Monday March 26

MORE PICASSOS FOUND IN TURKEY: Officials in Turkey have arrested several men who attempted to fence stolen works of Pablo Picasso. Eight Picasso paintings have now surfaced in Turkey in the last year, although some experts have questioned their authenticity. BBC 03/26/01

FIGHTING THE BLOCKBUSTER CULTURE: Art experts are concerned that museums are being forced to become slaves to their own visitor numbers. Where once a museum’s success was judged by the quality of its collection, it is now considered a failure unless it can pack the maximum number of people into its halls. BBC 03/26/01

• WALK RIGHT IN: “I went to a museum the other day. I can’t think what came over me. One minute I’m on a crowded street, fully engaged with the great issues of the day: What was Julia going to wear and who would Russell have on his arm now that Meg is no longer in the picture? The next thing I know, I’m alone in a darkened, silent room populated with 14 ancient, carved, Chinese figures, none of whom have just got out of limousines.” The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 03/26/01

FAR TOO SERIOUS: “There is no world so humourless as the world of art. No one so brain-meltingly self-regarding and serious as the artist. Think, if you can bear to, of Tracey Emin. I can scarcely conceive of a human being endowed with less humour. Yet all the while, art and comedy have become virtually indistinguishable.” The Observer (London) 03/25/01

MARBLES STAYING PUT: British Prime Minister Tony Blair on prospects for returning the Elgin marbles to Greece: ” ‘The marbles belong to the British Museum . . . which does not intend to return any part of the collection to its country of origin,” Blair said in an interview published Sunday in the Athens daily To Vima.” Toronto Star (AP) 03/25/01

A NATIONAL STORY: The National Museum of Australia has opened after 25 years of planning and debate. “This is a museum which very explicitly tells a number of stories, the most uncomfortable and most durable of which being the expropriation of land by the whites and the marginalisation of the Aboriginals.” The Art Newspaper 03/24/01

PROTECTING INDIA: India is finally taking steps to help protect and conserve its architecture from the 18th and 19th centuries. “Britain has half a million listed buildings. In India, a country with 14 times the land mass, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) protects (theoretically) about 5,000 monuments and the different State archaeological departments together protect perhaps another 2,000. The overwhelming bulk of historic buildings in India are unprotected.” The Art Newspaper 03/23/01

OUT OF O’KEEFFE’S SHADOW: Alfred Stieglitz is perhaps best known in the wider culture for having been married to the great American painter Georgia O’Keefe, but his career as a photographer, and a great artist in his own right, has recently started to get the attention it deserves. A new exhibit on display in the unlikely town of Doylestown, Pennsylvania does much to flesh out the Stieglitz legacy. Philadelphia Inquirer 03/25/01

CANADA ONLINE: Canada’s Minister of Culture launches a new Virtual Museum of Canada. “It contains an art gallery with more than 200,000 images, including paintings from the Group of Seven, Inuit sculpture and photographs.” CBC 03/25/01

AFRICAN CULTURAL QUANDRY: British explorer David Livingstone left a collection of letters, sketches, books, Journals and maps when he died in Zambia in 1873. Now “the museum that houses Livingstone’s legacy is crumbling, fast becoming a case study of the struggles faced by Africa’s cultural institutions.” The New York Times 03/26/01 (one-time registration required)

Sunday March 25

THE CELEBRITY MUSEUM: Cities across America are building flashy new museums. “That avant-garde architecture is playing such a leading role in marketing these projects—both to potential benefactors and to the public at large—is a sea change in the culture.” Newsweek 03/23/01

PHOTOGRAPHY IS KING: “For better or worse, photography is the New New Thing in the art market. Over the last two years, with fortunes being won and lost on bets about our digital future, the most searching visual invention of the 19th century has been charting upward like a 1999 Internet stock.” The New York Times 03/25/01 (one-time registration required for access)

TAKING THE PLUNGE: The Meadows Museum in Dallas has always been content to be nothing more than what it has been: a small university museum with a top-notch collection of mostly Spanish art, well-known to art experts the world over, but largely ignored in its own city. But today, Meadows will inaugurate its new, much-larger building, and hopes to use the greater visibility to get Dallasites as interested in its collection as outsiders have always been. Dallas Morning News 03/25/01

ALTERING THE LANDSCAPE: Claude Cormier creates landscapes. More than that, he creates altered realities. His vision of a perfect expanse of open land is as likely to include plastic pink flamingoes as not. “In 1996-97, for example, Cormier dyed parts of the lawns at Montreal’s Canadian Centre for Architecture vibrant blue as part of its The American Lawn exhibition because, he says, ‘the North American obsession with perfect grass deserved celebration.'” The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 03/25/01

REARVIEW MIRROR: Magdalena Abakanowicz has always been fascinated with the human form – specifically, the back of it. Her massive sculpture projects, which often consist of huge numbers of backward-facing figures that can fill a gallery or hillside, are often even more powerful for their lack of the traditional focal points of human sculpture. Los Angeles Times 03/25/01

Friday March 23

RECKLESS RETRIBUTION: The prevailing explanation for Afghanistan’s destruction of its Buddhist art has been that it was necessary to prevent idol worship. But the Taliban’s 24-year-old ambassador tells another story – one of retribution to UNESCO for using all its aid to save monuments, and not children. “I know it is not rational and logical to blow the statues for retaliation of economic sanctions, but this is how it is.” Salon 3/22/01

OUT TO PROVE IT: Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders briefly reopened Kabul’s National Museum (which has been closed to the public since August 1999) on Thursday, in order to prove that they had followed through on their promise to destroy all the pre-Islamic relics in the collection. “We will let you see inside the museum to show that we have destroyed all the statues that were there.” Prior to their takeover, the museum had housed a priceless collection of artifacts spanning Afghanistan’s 50,000-year history. International Herald Tribune 3/23/01

MOVING TO MIDTOWN: Christie’s East, the “bargain basement” franchise of the famous Christie’s auction house in New York, is selling the building it has called home since 1979. The company is moving the “Christie’s East” sales to its main headquarters in Rockefeller Center, where a good deal of space was apparently going unused. Art-loving New Yorkers are in a tizzy over the move, (which will also include a name change,) as only New Yorkers can be. New York Times 3/23/01 (one-time registration required for access)

SLASH AND DASH: The 19^th-century French painting “Pool in a Harem” by Jean-Leon Jerome was sliced out of its frame and stolen from St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum. “The painting was not a masterpiece, but a well-known work that would be impossible to sell.” St. Petersburg Times 3/23/01

Thursday March 22

PRESERVING THE NEW ART: As digital and technological art becomes more and more prevalent, the thoughts of collectors and museums are turning to the issue of how to preserve the works once the technology becomes obsolete, which will happen quickly. “The Guggenheim’s Variable Media Initiative is an unusual proactive program that asks new media artists to devise guidelines for translating their artworks via alternate media, once their current formats expire or disappear from the market.” Wired 03/22/01

PLAYING TO THE CROWD: You’ve got to say this for Bostonians – they can turn anything into a sporting event. This weekend, four architectural firms will compete to become the designer of the city’s new waterfront Institute of Contemporary Art. And, in a sharp divergence from the closed door way in which these things are usually done, the public is invited to the finals, and will have a chance to voice its opinion. Boston Herald 03/22/01

SCULPTURE AWARD: Australian sculptor Karen Ward has won the $105,000 Helen Lempriere Award for sculptors. The prize is intended to raise the visibility of sculptors. The Age (Melbourne) 03/22/01

Wednesday March 21

THE THUNDERING HERD: The fiberglass art animals are taking over. From a humble exhibit on the streets of Zurich in 1999, the artist-decorated Animals-on-Parade concept has swept the US. Why? Some say it’s because the public has fallen in love with them. Others contend it’s for the money (Chicago raised a reported $3 million selling its cows) But maybe someone should take a hard look at the so-called neutral Swiss. They may appear harmless, but… ArtsJournal.com 03/21/01

ARCHITECTURAL FREE-THINKER: Shigeru Ban is making a name for himself in architecture by doing the unexpected. “He has proved, for instance, that wood is an effective fire retardant. He has designed a floor that curves half-way up a wall… and has shown that recycled paper tubes make impressive structural frames that grow stronger over time.” Globe and Mail (Canada) 03/21/01

SACKLER/FREER DIRECTOR LEAVING: The director of Washington DC’s Sackler and Freer galleries is leaving the job. “Milo Beach has left his mark. The adjacent collections of mostly Asian art form a single institution. More than anyone else, it was Beach who made them a cohesive whole. Beach is the second Smithsonian art museum director to announce his retirement this year.” Washington Post 03/20/01

Tuesday March 20

LOOMING CRISIS FOR UK MUSEUMS? Has lottery cash ruined museums? “The huge expansion, bringing science, environment and art-based attractions and extensions to museums, left the sector with an extra £29m a year bill for increased costs in a static or declining market.” It’s a recipe for disaster, says a new report. The Guardian (London) 03/19/01

• Previously: TOO MANY MUSEUMS? A new study says that the UK has too many museums, and too many are doing poorly. The solution? Some of them must merge or close. “A coherent national museums’ policy is now essential, for without one it will be impossible to test what should be saved and what should go.” BBC 03/19/01

FREE DEBATE: Free admission to British museums is coming, but not without a fight. Some museums are resisting. They feel that “unless the public is made to pay for admission to museums they won’t fully appreciate what they are being allowed to see. The confrontation is as much ideological as financial, with many of the charging museums wedded to Thatcherite dogmas of maximising revenue and marketing, while the opposing camp, led by the Tate and National galleries, stress the importance of public service, access and education.” The Guardian (London) 0320/01

IMAGINE THAT: At a museum in Birmingham, visitors enter a blank gallery and asked to imagine the art based on short descriptions. “There is a history of producing artworks that are purely descriptive – it’s a questioning of what art is all about.” BBC 03/20/01

DESIGN IS ART/ART IS DESIGN? “Shopping is no longer just a pleasurable activity, but a quest for aesthetic images and brands that extend beyond clothing labels and logos to bricks, mortar, paint and lighting, and to the brand name of the architect as well.” New Statesman 03/19/01

DIGITAL GOES MAINSTREAM: It wasn’t many months ago that art critics were turning up their noses at digital art. Some suggested there really wasn’t yet such a thing. Now digital art is hot. “Digital artists are about to break down another boundary: the one between them and the art world’s upper echelons. The Whitney’s ‘BitStreams’ exhibition, which opens March 22, is the first show devoted to such work at a major New York museum.” New York Magazine 03/19/01

LONDON W/O THE THAMES: What if the Thames didn’t run through London? It would be more than just the lack of water – the culture of the place would be different. “The images are claustrophobic, the city reduced to a futile parade of buildings. It’s like coitus interruptus, a joke without a punchline. There’s a tremendously strong sense of liquid being disastrously absent from a place where it is sorely needed: think of a pub without any drinks.” Evening Standard (London) 03/20/01

Monday March 19

EXPLAINING THE DESTRUCTION: Taliban leaders decided to destroy artwork after a delegation visited and offered money to help protect the giant Buddhas. “They said, `If you are destroying our future with economic sanctions, you can’t care about our heritage.’ And so they decided that these statues must be destroyed. The Taliban’s Supreme Court confirmed the edict. The New York Times 03/19/01 (one-time registration required for access)

SOTHEBY’S DOWN/CHRISTIE’S UP: After a year when both auction houses were embroiled in price-fixing settlements, Sotheby’s sales are down 14 percent. Christie’s is up 12 percent. The Art Newspaper 03/16/01

TOKYO MUSEUM CRISIS: Last year Tokyo’s Museum of Contemporary Art hung up a “deficit of ¥1.6 billion (then worth $15.2 million) during the financial year ending in March 2000.” Attendance also plummeted. Now the museum is considering some radical moves, including selling off some of its art. The Art Newspaper 03/16/01

A CRISIS OF FAKES: A former curator at the Getty Museum contends some of the museum’s drawings attributed to Renaissance masters are fakes. The Getty denies the claims, but refuses to produce evidence it says it has that they are not. Museums “The implications of this controversy are far from trivial. Each year, tens of millions of museumgoers walk through the entrance of the Getty, or the Metropolitan or the Prado or the Hermitage, and never consider the possibility of having to arbitrate for themselves the authenticity of what they have come to see.” The New York Times Magazine 03/18/01 (one-time registration required for access)

TOO MANY MUSEUMS? A new study says that the UK has too many museums, and too many are doing poorly. The solution? Some of them must merge or close. “A coherent national museums’ policy is now essential, for without one it will be impossible to test what should be saved and what should go.” BBC 03/19/01

• OVER-EXPANSION: “Museums need an additional £29 million each year to pay the increased running costs of lottery-funded new buildings and extensions. Part of the problem was the increased competition from other attractions and static visitor numbers.” The Times (London) 03/19/01

LONDON TOWERS: London has never been dominated by tall buildings. And those skyscrapers it has had have not been particularly inspiring. But now, a new generation of tall spires is about to rise in the English capital. Will they be bland and ugly, or create a picturesque cityscape? The Guardian (London) 03/19/01

EYE-WITNESS PROOF: Taliban leaders say they may let journalists see the destroyed remains of the giant Buddhas they destroyed as early as Wednesday. The New York Times 03/18/01 (one-time registration required for access)

• UNDERSTANDING THE TALIBAN: Difficult as it is for the rest of the world to understand why the Taliban would destroy artifacts so old and precious, a question arises: “In the deepest, broadest sense, did the Taliban really have any idea what they were doing? The movement’s leaders are mostly young sons of illiterate peasants, raised on mine-strewn battlefields and stark refugee camps, and educated in rote sectarian blinders. Do they understand that this act, more than anything else, will be how the world remembers them?” The New York Times 03/18/01 (one-time registration required for access)

Sunday March 18

THE POLITICS OF LENDING: A rare exhibition of 92 drawings by the Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli illustrating Dante’s “Divine Comedy” which opened in London last week, refused a stop at New York’s Metropolitan Museum because of fears by the Vatican (which owns some of the drawings) about a California court case. New York Times 03/17/01 (one-time registration required for access)

COMING SOON – CELL PHONE ART! The explosion of new technologies over the last decade has meant an ever-increasing range of options for artists looking to explore new mediums. The “digital age” is starting to crystallize into a definable movement, but there is still plenty of room for expansion. New York Times 03/18/01 (one-time registration required for access)

FROM THE MOUTHS OF BABES: A unique collaboration is unfolding in a gallery in Evanston, Illinois, and the organizers aim to educate visitors about the growth of Native American stereotyping in the U.S. This is nothing new, of course, but the method may be: the Chicago Public School System is one of the collaborators, and the children’s impressions of mass media portrayals of minorities is a large part of the exhibit. Chicago Tribune 03/18/01

A GALLERY THAT MATTERS: London’s Whitechapel gallery is 100 years old. “Before Tate Modern was a glint in Nicholas Serota’s eye, the Whitechapel put on shows that made other British galleries look tame. Almost all the most influential modern art exhibitions in post-war Britain happened here.” The Guardian 03/17/01

WRIGHT AGAIN: Architect Frank Lloyd Wright was nothing if not self-serving, and a reenactment of one of his famously rambling speeches underscores the point in humorous fashion. But “The Art & Craft of the Machine” also reveals a shockingly accurate set of predictions about the technologies that were yet to come, including computers and the internet. Chicago Tribune 03/18/01

MONET IN MINNESOTA: A flower show in the Twin Cities has taken on the challenge of recreating Claude Monet’s famous gardens in an auditorium of a downtown Minneapolis department store. The intricately detailed (if somewhat downsized) summer gardens are quite a feat, considering that the Upper Midwest is still in the clutches of winter. Minneapolis Star Tribune 03/17/01

ROSS BOUNCES BACK: Remember David A. Ross? The top man at the Whitney Museum in New York who for nearly a decade never saw his name in print without the words “embattled director” before it was practically run out of Gotham on a rail in 1998. But Ross has found new life as the director of San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art, and the gallery’s newest exhibit is his proudest accomplishment. Los Angeles Times 03/18/01

PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS AN OLD MAN: In the world of French Canadian abstractionists, few artists can approach the legacy of Charles Gagnon. A soft-spoken man with a thirst for knowledge and new experience, he has produced some of the last century’s greatest abstract paintings. Now, as he reflects on his life and his career, the sharp twists and turns of his evolving style become less mysterious. The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 03/17/01

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE PROCESS: Seven German artists are bringing the spectacle of creating art to the public with a seven-day marathon Internet broadcast. “Art lovers around the world can go to www.live-art.tv and watch one participant a day paint, develop or sculpt an original work to be completed within seven hours in a studio at the Museum of Fine Arts in the western German city of Celle.” Nando Times 03/18/01

Friday March 16

THE MOST DANGEROUS RELIGION (HINT: IT’S NOT ISLAM): The world has watched in horror as Afghani fundamentalists willfully destroyed cultural treasures. But destruction of art is only a piece of a larger cultural battle going on here. Is international cultural conflict replacing political Cold War conflict? ArtsJournal.com 3/16/01

PROVOKING THE BULLIES: Most of the world has been outraged over the Taliban’s destruction of the giant Buddhas. Now Pakistan’s foreign minister urges other nations not to shun the Taliban, fearing the regime will use international hostility as an excuse to make life even more difficult for the Afghan people. Pakistan is one of three countries that offically acknowledges the Taliban regime. The Times of India (AFP) 3/15/01

DUTY TO PROTECT: Destruction of Afghani art certainly didn’t begin with the Taliban’s assault on the giant Buddhas. The Society for the Preservation of Afghanistan’s Cultural Heritage (SPACH) has been fighting to save artwork in Afghanistan since 1994 (without much luck). “Monuments were being neglected, if not badly damaged by the war, historic sites had been and were still being illegally excavated and, most importantly, the Kabul Museum, which houses an important collection, was being damaged and plundered.” Purabudaya 2000

PRESERVATION AT ALL COSTS? In an effort to protect the deteriorating Giotto frescoes in Padua’s Scrovegni Chapel, visitors are now only allowed into the chapel for scheduled 15-minute visits, and must view the work from glass enclosures. It alters the experience. “Maybe we should at least consider the radical notion that masterpieces – like so much else in this mutable world – have a life-span, and ask ourselves if preserving them is worth making it so unpleasant to experience them.” The Atlantic Monthly 04/01

THE PROSECUTION RESTS: Indecency charges against London’s Saatchi Gallery, raised over a current exhibition of child photos by Tierney Gearon and Nan Goldin, were dropped Thursday after the Crown Prosecution Service concluded a conviction in the case was highly unlikely. BBC 3/15/01

FINDERS, KEEPERS? An urgent appeal to raise £7.5 million has been launched by the National Galleries of Scotland to prevent a drawing by Michelangelo from being sold on the open market. The 500-year-old drawing – considered the most important Michelangelo discovery in living memory – was found last October in a scrapbook in a castle in North Yorkshire. If the money is collected, the work will go on permanent display in Edinburgh. The Telegraph (London) 3/16/01

MAKING A POINT: Italian architect Renzo Piano has released his initial drawings of the 1,000-foot glass tower to be built above London Bridge, which would make it the largest building in Europe. “The tower would bring the city’s stumpy, lumpy skyline to a refined point. I can’t see why it shouldn’t be built, except fear, and a city cannot live on fear.” London Evening Standard 3/16/01

DRIPPER’S LEGACY: Ed Harris’s riveting portrayal of one of the 20th century’s most fascinating artists has earned “Pollock” an Oscar nod and critical raves. But art historians have been irked by Harris’s decision to make it seem as if Jackson Pollock’s innovations were nothing more than an outgrowth of his descent into madness. “Pollock’s epiphany likely didn’t arise out of locking himself in a Greenwich Village walkup for three weeks, as the film suggests. Abstract Expressionism built on European modernist painting.” The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 03/16/01

Thursday March 15

UK JOINS EFFORT AGAINST ART THEFT: After years of campaigning by museums and archaeologists, the British government has agreed to join a worldwide convention allowing cultural treasures to be recovered if they turn up in member countries. The Times (London) 03/15/01

THE FINE LINE OF ART AND… Tierney Gearon’s photographs of naked children displayed at Charles Saatchi’s gallery brought out Scotland Yard last week. Do the pictures qualify as child pornography, as the police charged? Where is the line between art and exploitation? The Scotsman 03/13/01

ART WITHOUT LABELS: There’s a charity “blind auction” of art in Edinburgh – all of the art sells for £200. But the identity of the artist is hidden. You might be bidding on a valuable work or it could be an amateur photo – you takes your chances. “There is endless potential for art snobs to be wrongfooted – picture the art ‘expert’ who, convinced he has cleverly spotted a rare abstract work by a world famous artist, ends up going home with a child’s finger painting. The Scotsman 03/15/01

A NEW BRAND OF RUSSIAN ART… AND ARTIST: Mikhail Chemiakin once was hounded by the KGB; now he’s buddies with Russian President and former KGB officer Vladimir Putin. He’s a litany of contradictions. “Critics are disdainful, but he is adored by art buyers in Middle America and among Russia’s new rich. His fans describe his work as mystical, supernatural and exotic. ‘Chemiakin’s work is the kind of stuff you don’t need a fancy art education to appreciate,’ one British critic sniffed.” The Globe and Mail (Toronto) 03/15/01

Wednesday March 14

GALLERY GETS A REPRIEVE: The threat of an immediate police seizure of controversial photos from Charles Saatchi’s London gallery has been lifted after Scotland Yard announced that a legal decision on the matter was unlikely before the gallery reopens for business Thursday. The police had earlier said they would prosecute the gallery under the 1978 Protection of Children Act, which made “indecent photographs of children” a crime – yet says nothing to clarify what ‘indecent’ should be taken to mean. “The law has never been used against art exhibitions in its 22 year history.” The Guardian (London) 3/14/01

WASHINGTON STAYS IN WASHINGTON: Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of George Washington will stay at the Smithsonian. The painting, on loan from a British collector, was to have been sold at auction if the Smithsonian couldn’t come up with $20 million. Now a Las Vegas foundation has donated money to keep the portrait where it is. Washington Post 03/14/01

ATTENTION GETTER: The world is still trying to figure out why the Taliban destroyed their art. Was it just to get attention for a country the rest of the world has been ignoring? “For Mullah Omar, who had spared the statues in the hope of improving relations with the West, the increased pressure indicated he had nothing left to lose. His response to the rest of the world: If you want the monuments to survive, then recognize us as we are.” Newsweek (MSNBC) 03/13/01

DUMPING CHARGES: Ontario’s McMichael Gallery is set to dump as many as 2000 works of art from its collection now that the government has ruled the gallery can return to its Group of Seven roots. But the province’s art community is “worried that such an unprecedented disposal could flood an ‘extremely fragile’ market, devalue certain artists and send a discouraging message to scores of donors. There’s even talk of possible lawsuits against the province from those affected by the changes.” Ottawa Citizen 03/14/01

Tuesday March 13

ART OR PEOPLE? Who can explain the Taliban’s destruction of art? “For example, why are they doing so? Was the destruction of statues a stupid act, or was it a shrewdly calculated move to attain international attention? Then, who created the Taliban? And who is pushing them against the wall now? After the world’s reaction over the statue issue, many in Afghanistan might ask whether the stone statues were more important than millions of starving human beings.” Middle East Times 03/12/01

GUGGENHEIM ON THE STRIP: Another new Guggenheim Museum is on the way, in, of all places, Las Vegas. The (naturally) outsized new gallery is sure to draw plenty of interest, but it is drawing plenty of unfriendly fire as well, from critics and artists who wonder, “When you’ve already got Manhattan in your palm, why should you stoop to playing Vegas?” The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 03/13/01

NEW WINDS OF ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN: “Of all the notions that have gained currency in the last two decades, this has been perhaps the most damaging: the suggestion that clarity is the enemy. It left us with critical writing and built projects that were oppressive and leaden—worse yet, that wore their drudgery as a badge of honor—and a slew of schemes that sought to reflect rather than transcend the unsteady nature of what became known as ‘decentered’, ‘postindustrial’ life.” But now a new notion of design. Metropolis 03/01

THE VANISHING: Leonardo’s “Last Supper” is damaged almost to the point of obscurity. Nonetheless, restorers have spent the past 20 years trying to lighten and brighten the images. Now the controversial results are revealed – here are comparisons between pre-restoration and after. University of Chicago Press 03/12/01

Monday March 12

HOW THEY KILLED THE BUDDHAS: “After failing to destroy the 1,700-year-old sandstone statues of Buddha with anti-aircraft and tank fire, the Taliban brought a lorryload of dynamite from Kabul. A Western observer said: ‘They drilled holes into the torsos of the two statues and then placed dynamite charges inside the holes to blow them up’.” The Telegraph (London) 03/12/01

• SMUGGLED OUT OF HARM’S WAY: A wave of art has been smuggled out of Afghanistan and is being sold on the black market in London. It’s a trade that has been active for some time, but the Taliban destruction has upped the stakes. The Observer 03/11/01

DISAPPROVAL FROM THE TOP: Britain’s Culture Minister gets into the issue over the police raid of Charles Saatchi’s London gallery. “We must be very careful in this country before we start censoring things that are happening, either in newspapers or in art galleries.” The Independent (London) 03/12/01

• GALLERY RESISTING: “Despite the police warnings that the pictures must be removed by Thursday, the gallery said it had no plans to take down the photographs. ‘We have received legal advice from barrister Geoffrey Robertson and been told that the police have used the wrong definition of what is indecent’.” The Observer (London) 03/11/01
• Previously: SAATCHI GALLERY RAIDED BY POLICE: Scotland Yard has raided Charles Saatchi’s London gallery and said that it would seize images from the show if they were not removed before the gallery reopened. Police say they will do so under anti child-pornography legislation. “The exhibition features the work of a group of artists and photographers selected by Charles Saatchi himself and taken from his personal collection of photographs and paintings.” The Guardian (London) 03/10/01

COPIES THAT SAVE: Spain’s Altamira caves contain some of the best examples of prehistoric paintings. But “throughout the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, throngs of tourists flocked to the cave to seek a connection with early humans” and the 14,000-year-old paintings were threatened. So next door in another set of caves, high technology is being used to make exact copies of the paintings for visitors. Wired 03/11/01

NEW VERMEER? A rediscovered Vermeer has been certified as a 36th surviving work by the master. “Vermeer’s surviving works are so rare, with only 35 fully accepted paintings, that any new addition to his oeuvre will generate great excitement.” The Art Newspaper 03/10/01

MAASTRICHT’S OLD MASTERS SHRINKING: The number of Old Master paintings for sale has been dwindling. As a consequence, “although it is known mainly as an Old Masters fair, Maastricht has expanded its other categories in recent times and this year includes some stunning Impressionist and 20th-century pictures.” The Telegraph (London) 03/12/01

SEVERED HAND MISSING: A marble hand from an ancient Greek statue has been stolen from the British Museum. Nando Times (AP) 03/12/01

LIFE SHREDDING: Artist Michael Landy has finished shredding and granulating everything he owns. People found the “artwork” appalling, and gave Landy’s cat presents since Landy maintained he couldn’t own anything at the end. “The thousands of visitors to the event seemed more traumatised than Landy himself. Many I spoke to were suspicious of his motives – the term ‘self- indulgent’ cropped up several times – but all expressed a kind of appalled envy.” Sunday Times (London) 03/11/01

OF MYTH AND POLLOCK: The new bio-pic of Jackson Pollock has a lot to cram into it. But, beautiful as it is, it’s not possible to fully put into perspective the artist’s life, legend and myth. Herewith an attempt at clarification. The Idler 03/12/01

Sunday March 11

MUSEUM VISITS DOWN: The American economy isn’t the only thing slowing – since October museum attendance across the country has been down – Boston’s MFA, for example had 22 percent fewer visitors compared to the same period last year. Minneapolis Star-Tribune (WSJ) 03/11/01

SAATCHI GALLERY RAIDED BY POLICE: Scotland Yard has raided Charles Saatchi’s London gallery and said that it would seize images from the show if they were not removed before the gallery reopened. Police say they will do so under anti child-pornography legislation. “The exhibition features the work of a group of artists and photographers selected by Charles Saatchi himself and taken from his personal collection of photographs and paintings. It has been running for eight weeks and has been reviewed in most of the broadsheet papers and magazines from the Tatler to the Telegraph, without any public complaints to the gallery.” The Guardian (London) 03/10/01

BUDDHA WAS RIGHT: So now the giant Bamiyan buddhas have been destroyed. The Metropolitan Museum had offered to buy and transport the statues to New York in order to preserve them “It’s hard to imagine a more perfect or succinct misunderstanding of the issue. Absence is absence, no matter if the Buddhas become dust in Afghanistan or dusted objets d’arts in some far away museum. That this seemed, if briefly, a plausible solution indicates what is truly at stake here, and that it is not so simple as preserving ‘the world’s cultural heritage’.” Killing the Buddha 03/08/01

• STAY-AT-HOME ART: “In recent years, the dispute over the right to antiquities has tended to favor those who argue that art treasures belong near their origins, rather than in collections continents away.” But the Taliban destruction has changed some thinking on the issue. “Museums [in the West] are saying, ‘We should have protected this material.’ ” Los Angeles Times 03/10/01
• WRONG ON RELIGIOUS GROUNDS: Islamic intellectuals in Los Angeles have objected to the Taliban’s destruction of art. “In a unanimous statement, the eight intellectuals said the Taliban’s destruction of statues violated the Koranic requirement to tolerate those of other faiths. The Koran’s sixth chapter, for instance, tells Muslims: ‘We have not set you as a keeper over them, nor are you responsible for them. . . . Abuse not those whom they worship besides Allah, lest they out of spite abuse Allah in their ignorance’.” Los Angeles Times 03/09/01

SPOTTING THE FAKES: It’s not such an easy matter – how about knockoff art created 1000 years ago, or mass-produced copies? The art of finding the fakes. Toronto Star 03/11/01

• THE ENDURING FAKE: What becomes of fake art once its exposed as fraudulent? Some wind up in classrooms where they are studied. “A few become ‘famous fakes’: Museums sometimes organize shows displaying them. And some deceived collectors even decide to keep their fakes – for sentimental reasons or because the works have become valuable in their own right as clever copies.” Christian Science Monitor 03/09/01

A FIASCO AT THE MALL: Why is the issue of memorials on Washington DC’s National Mall so charged? The latest proposal – for a $100 million World War II memorial is being pounced on by critics. “As presently envisioned, it is an aesthetic disaster, a prime example of bureaucratic high kitsch style not implausibly described as watered-down Albert Speer by a few critics.” The New York Times 03/04/01 (one-time registration required for access)

THE ART OF SCIENCE: Recently artists have been vigorously taking up science as fodder for their art. Why? “Ever since art uncoupled from its traditional concerns it has been in search of a subject. What better subject than science, to help us address our place in the universe? My hope is that science-art collaborations will become so accepted that people will stop regarding them as unusual.” The Telegraph (London) 03/10/01

ANIMALS ON PARADE (ANGELIC VERSION): Los Angeles had planned to populate its downtown streets with 6’4″-tall angels, decorated by artists. “But due to rain, red tape, tardy artists, cash-flow problems and the logistics of carting the 500-pound artworks (a 100-pound angel on a 400-pound base), Community of Angels is taking flight more slowly than project organizers had hoped. Los Angeles Times 03/10/01

WHITNEY CLOSES STAMFORD: The Whitney Museum closes its outpost in Stamford Connecticut. The museum says it can’t afford to stay at the Stamford gallery it has occupied for almost 20 years.” Stamford Advocate 03/10/01

Friday March 9

ALTARPIECE MYSTERY SOLVED? An Antwerp policeman claims to have solved one of the most enduring mysteries in all of art history: the missing panel of van Eyck’s 15^th-century Adoration of the Lamb altarpiece, which was stolen in 1934. “The 12-panel polyptych is considered to be one of the most important works in Western painting; over the centuries it has also earned itself the reputation of being the world’s most stolen masterpiece.” The motives for the theft have never been established, but theories are rampant… The Telegraph (London) 3/09/01

GOODBYE, MONET: For the first time in six years, no Impressionist exhibition featured among the top 20 shows in the world last year, according to the Art Newspaper’s latest survey. Surprisingly, a London exhibit on the image of Christ was the most popular in all of Britain and came in fourth in popularity worldwide. Sydney Morning Herald 3/09/01

THERE GO THE RELIGIOUS GROUNDS: Rudy Giuliani’s attack on artist Renee Cox’s “Yo Mama’s Last Supper” proves he knows less about the religious issues he claims to defend than does Cox. But “falling back on free speech to defend one’s art from political attack is tantamount to saying that art transcends politics. A lovely sentiment, but not very likely. The only thing high art transcends is the debate the rest of us who express ideas accept as part of public discussion.” Killing the Buddha 03/03/01

PRICE OF THE IRISH… Everything Irish is hot these days – after years of weakness, the Irish economy is one of the hottest in all Europe. Paintings too. Irish art is the fastest-rising sector of the art market. “Fifteen years ago the top Irish price was $30,000; currently the most expensive Irish painting, Lavery’s ‘The Bridge at Grez’ of 1883, sold for $2.4 million.” Forbes 03/19/01

MACHU PICCHU THREATENED BY LANDSLIDE: Earth beneath the ruins of Machu Picchu is shifting rapidly; geologists warn that the lost city of the Incas could be split in two by a landslide at any time. Hidden on a spur a mile and a half high in the Andes, Machu Picchu was the last refuge of the Incan empire; it was discovered in 1911 by a US archaeologist. UNESCO lists the city as a World Heritage Site. The New Scientist 03/07/01

MAYBE THEY COULD FOCUS IT ON CRITICS: It seemed like a great idea – a dazzling sculpture to attract attention at a playhouse in the British city of Nottingham. The giant concave steel mirror, set up in front of the playhouse, will reflect the sky. Unfortunately, for about four months of the year, it will also reflect sunlight. Focus it sharply, in fact. So sharply that it could instantly barbecue birds flying overhead. ABC 03/07/01

MCCAUGHEY LEAVES YALE MUSEUM: Patrick McCaughey, Director of the Yale Center for British Art, is leaving that post to “do research and writing and seek other opportunities in the arts.” McCaughey, formerly director of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, increased attendance at the Yale Center, and oversaw extensive renovations to the building. His departure comes as a surprise to most observers. The Hartford Courant 03/09/01

Thursday March 8

D.O.T. GIVES KENNEDY PLAN A BOOST: The U.S. Department of Transportation has issued a report recommending a massive $269 million expansion of Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center. The purpose of the expansion would be to alleviate the center’s physical isolation from the rest of the district by building an 11-acre plaza over several nearby highways. Director Michael Kaiser is, naturally, thrilled with the report. Washington Post 03/08/01

COMPUTING ANGLES: Computers have been part of the architect’s studio for a full generation now, but “until the last few years they were mainly tools that helped make conventional architecture easier to produce.” Now, “software that is affecting the creation of new designs. Computers produce shapes of extraordinary complexity, with swoops and bends and twists so baroque that no structural engineer could ever have figured out how to build them.” The New Yorker 03/05/01

WHY OH WHY? So what is the religious justification for the Taliban’s destruction of the giant Buddhas? “The deed is being perpetrated in the name of Islam, in which there is no basis for such vandalism. Indeed, the Islamic world has admired the two sculptures almost from the day Islam became entrenched in the area around the ninth century.” International Herald Tribune 03/07/01

EARLY DESTRUCTION OF ART: Egyptologists are debating whether to restore a toppled 3,200-year-old 50-foot-high statue of Ramses II or leave it on the ground in pieces where early Christian monks felled and dismembered it to discourage idolatry. “The face was attacked, as the early Christians often did, and traces of hammering can be found all over the place, clearly showing that the destruction was willed.” Middle East Times (Egypt) 03/07/01

MUSIC GETS A NEW LOOK: The University of Illinois has unveiled an exhibit that focuses on the visual side of the music world. “Between Sound and Vision” is no high-tech, cutting-edge, multimedia effort – what the creators of the exhibit have done is take the truly “inside baseball” parts of the contemporary music world (scores by John Cage, unconventional in the extreme, make up the lion’s share of the exhibit) and displayed them as artworks that stand on their own. The idea is to explore the ever-expanding definition of music. Chicago Tribune 03/08/01

BEHIND THE SCENES: Audio artist Janet Cardiff has been awarded Canada’s $50,000 “Millenium Prize,” one of the largest arts awards in the history of the country. Cardiff’s latest piece, “Forty Part Motet,” consists of a massive array of 40 speakers, and very little else. “Each of the speakers emits the sound of a distinct voice singing one part from . . .a 12-minute choral work written by the British composer Thomas Tallis in 1575. During the performers’ intermission, we hear the singers chatting, working out difficulties in the score, or discussing their various jobs and interests before the performance resumes again.” The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 03/08/01

Wednesday March 7

PHILLIPS REMAKING AUCTION MARKET: Now even Sotheby’s board members are selling their art at No. 3 auction house Phillips. Observers say that Phillips is “guaranteeing collectors so much money that neither Sotheby’s nor Christie’s can come near the offers. As a consequence, the high-end auction world — a cozy gentleman’s club until the federal investigation into price-fixing and collusion shattered its decorum — is becoming an ever more free-wheeling, up-for-grabs marketplace, which makes officials at both houses worry that tight profit margins could evaporate completely.” The New York Times 03/07/01

SMITHSONIAN HITS THE JACKPOT AGAIN: The Smithsonian American Art Museum will receive a $10 million gift to go towards the $180 million renovation of its main museum building. The donation is the Smithsonian’s second $10 million windfall in a month. Washington Post 03/07/01

A VENEER OF VERMEER: What makes a 17th-century painter into a bona fide 21st century superstar? Well, it can’t hurt when a couple of high-profile (some might say blockbuster) exhibits inspire four novels, a book of poetry, and an opera. But in the case of Jan Vermeer, to whose legacy all these things have recently been added, scholars are concerned that most of the hype is just that, and that little of the artist’s actual life story remains intact in the face of all the tribute. Chicago Tribune 03/07/01

MONEY TRUMPS ENVIRONMENT: Japan’s World Expo 2005 was meant to be an environmentally friendy effort. “We wanted to change this country through this Expo. People are so used to destroying nature and installing rows of houses. So through this masterplan we wanted to change this process, and the relationship between this Expo and future town planning in Japan.” Unfortunately the whole master plan is unraveling fast. The Independent (London) 03/05/01

GIULIANI WOULD JUST HATE THIS: One of Paris’s hottest art destinations is, quite literally, illegal. “Squat du 59, rue de Rivoli” is a commune of artists squatting in a downtown building, and producing volumes of experimental art that have caught the Parisian public’s attention. But come spring, when city authorities begin evicting squatters, the commune faces extinction, unless a donor can be found to buy their building. The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 03/07/01

DREAM GARDEN NIGHTMARE: The City of Philadelphia goes to court today to try and save the historic “Dream Garden” mural that hangs in the lobby of one of downtown’s oldest buildings. The mural, which is thought to be worth between $5 million and $20 million, is in danger of being moved or demolished by its owners, the estate of deceased art patron John Merriam. Philadelphia Inquirer 03/07/01

CITIES OF TOMORROW: What will cities be like in the future? “Are we in for a Bladerunner future, where an increasingly glamorous aristo-class reclines atop a vast prole-tariat whose members slug it out in the dirty and disenfranchised bilge waters of life below decks? One of the many metaphors for cities proffered by the international experts gathered in Adelaide evoked just such a Titanic image, complete with distracted pilot and impending iceberg.” Sydney Morning Herald 03/07/01

THE BRITISH MUSEUM’S NEW AFRICAN GALLERIES: The British Museum’s new galleries of African art are gathering fans. “Purists will worry – purists always do worry – that such objects are being shown outside the religious, ritual or domestic contexts for which they were made. But 20th-century artists, from Picasso and Modigliani, taught us to aestheticise these things, and, once something has been seen as art, it is very difficult not to see it that way.” The Telegraph (London) 03/07/01

• FINALLY SOME PROMINENCE: Amounting to more than 200,000 objects, the collection ranks among the most comprehensive surveys of its subject anywhere in the world. The Times (London) 03/07/01

Tuesday March 6

PROUD DESTROYER : Despite condemnation from around the globe – even from their few allies in Pakistan and the UAE – the Taliban’s leader broadcast a message throughout Afghanistan Monday telling his countrymen to be proud of his decision to destroy all the country’s pre-Islamic art and Buddhist sculpture. “The Taliban maintains its action would help create the world’s purest Islamic state saying their mission to destroy ‘false idols’ will continue.” CNN 3/05/01

INTO THE INNER CITY: Facing low visitor turnout and the ongoing difficulties of drawing arts patrons outside the city, the Barnes Foundation is contemplating a move from its historic suburban home to a site in Philadelphia’s center. “Underlying the pressures to transform is the view that wealthy donors and foundations are reluctant to open their wallets and portfolios to an institution whose access is so limited. Given its secluded location and burdensome 60-day advance reservation requirements, the collection draws only 85 percent of its visitor quota.” New York Times 3/06/01 (one-time registration required for access)

THE ART OF TOMB ROBBING: “When I first started out in this business, many of the objects I handled crumbled to pieces. They were too fragile. Now, I have a more scientific approach…The first rule of tomb-robbing is never take anything home and never put anything in your car. If the police find you in possession of anything, you’re in trouble… I love history. If I had studied, I’d be a great archaeologist…I’ve taken my son out with me three or four times, but he’s not really interested in tomb-robbing. There’s no passion.” The Art Newspaper 03/06/01

YO MAMA, YO PATHETIC: The Cardinal of New York slammed the Brooklyn Museum of Art as being publicity hungry and artist Renee Cox – who posed as a nude Christ figure in a 1996 photograph – a “pathetic individual.” The museum is currently showing Cox’s work “Yo Mama’s Last Supper” and New York mayor Rudy Giuliani has also criticized the work. New York Daily News 03/05/01

IT ISN’T JUST FOR SUBWAY CARS ANY MORE: Graffitti-inspired commercial art is “in” right now, and the originators aren’t happy. At least, their scholars aren’t: “The downside occurs when an artist takes his work out of its underground context and begins to produce commercial work. Then the elements that made his work unique can conspire to make it over-familiar, and in danger of crossing the line from tag to logo.” spark-online 03/01

MONEY TALKS: Engravings on old Confederate bills reveal a great deal about slavery. “We hear a lot these days about how the Confederacy was really about states’ rights and not slavery. But the currency itself tells the truth. It shows how they saw us, and how they wanted to keep seeing us.” The New York Times 03/06/01 (one-time registration required for access)

TOO MANY PICASSOS: The State Painting and Sculpture Museum in Ankara is delighted with its trove of Picassos. But are they real? “Even an ordinary person would understand that these are not the real pictures but very bad copies that look like they were made from postcards. Even the signature of Picasso on the back [of one] is a copy of a signature from another period.” Washington Post 03/05/01

Monday March 5

TOP ART THEFTS: What were the top art thefts of the 20th Century? Theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911 ranks high. Here’s a list of the top ten… Forbes.com 03/05/01

FALLOUT FOR SOTHEBY’S/CHRISTIE’S: Fallout from Sotheby’s and Christie’s auction house legal woes is mounting. Sotheby’s website has been a money sinkhole, there’re those big settlements to pay, and it looks like customers are turning to other sellers. And look, there’s No. 3 auction house Phillips in the passing lane… The Economist 03/03/01

DEAD BODIES AS ART? “In a show that pushes the boundaries of the controversial, a German doctor is displaying real cadavers. Skinned and dissected, the preserved bodies, which were donated by fully informed volunteers, are recomposed in abstract and representational forms for aesthetic effect. ‘I don’t show pure anatomy, it’s more something like anatomy-entertainment’.” Washington Post 03/05/01

FOUNDER BEGINS DISMANTLING ART COLLECTION: Last year the Canadian provincial government of Ontario wrested control of the McMichael Collection, a public art collection, away from its board and gave it back to its founder, Robert McMichael. Now “the founder has described 3,000 of the works out of the gallery’s collection of 6,000 as ‘unsuitable’, but that he, nevertheless, might focus his initial energy on 12 pieces ‘that he really dislikes’.” These he will dispose of. The Art Newspaper 03/03/01

ARTS PATRON: Chicago is getting an architectural makeover, led by mayor Richard Daley. “So firm is Daley’s grip on power that he has conflated the traditionally separate roles of patron and planner into a single autocratic whole. He reviews every single major project built in his city (bad news for Modernists, because the mayor is no fan of steel and glass). He also is a public-works fanatic who scribbles notes to his aides as he rides around the city in his chauffeur-driven limousine—fill this pothole, fix that streetlight, trim that tree. Plenty of architects can’t stand him; but the vast majority of voters love him.” Metropolis 03/01

ARCHITECTURAL SHOOT-OUT: Two high profile building projects are in the planning stages in New York. An interesting competition between the two is possible. “Let’s see who can build not only taller or faster but who can build best. An architectural free-for-all on the East River: that’s my idea of fireworks on the Fourth of July.” The New York Times 03/05/01 (one-time registration required for access)

CUBAN FAKES: “Rapidly escalating prices for paintings by Cuban masters have led to a notorious parallel market for fakes. Damaging the artists’ legacies, the fakes have turned up in the United States, Spain and Latin America. Many forgers are aided by Cuba’s political isolation and the scarcity of resources and experts on Cuban art who can certify a work’s authenticity.” Miami Herald 03/05/01

WESTERN MUSEUMS TO MERGE? Los Angeles’ Southwest Museum and the Autry Museum of Western Heritage are considering merging and creating a new National Center for Western Heritage, which would function as an umbrella for the two museums. Los Angeles Times 03/05/01

Sunday March 4

AFGHAN ART DESTROYED: “Taliban Information Minister Quadratullah Jamal announced that, in apparent defiance of international condemnation and pleas to preserve the world’s tallest standing Buddha statue and other ancient artifacts, two-thirds of the country’s statues had been smashed. ‘They were easy to break apart and did not take much time,’ he said.” Washington Post 03/04/01

SHAKEN, NOT STIRRED: Seattle is a hotbed of glass art, with dozens of internationally known glass artists working there. They didn’t fare so well in last week’s 6.8 earthquake. Galleries lost hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of glass art, and several large installations by Dale Chihuly were destroyed. Who pays for damage? Mostly the artists – most galleries didn’t have quake insurance. Seattle Post-Intelligencer 03/02/01

THEY’RE CALLING IT LONDON’S EIFFEL TOWER: Of all of London’s projects marking the turn of the millennium, perhaps the most popular is the Eye – a giant ferris wheel in the middle of the city that began turning about a year ago. Whereas the Millennium Dome was richly funded and bombed with the public, the Eye was financed on a shoestring and has come to help define the city’s skyline. The Telegraph (London) 03/03/01

INFLATED NOTORIETY: Let’s take a step back from knee-jerk reactions over controversial work like that in the current Brooklyn Museum/Giuliani flap. Celebrity conveyed by such disputes is unreasonable and unwarranted. “With so many things competing for the public’s overburdened, shortened attention span, any sort of distinction is positive for an artwork. Remember the salesman’s motto: ‘If you can’t make a good impression, make an impression’.” Chicago Tribune 03/04/01

MUSEUM AUDIENCE GROWS WHILE MUSEUM CLOSED: In the month before it closed for a five-year renovation, the Smithsonian Museum of American Art attracted 54,000 visitors. A year later – in the same month – the museum received almost 60,000 visitors online to see its artwork. “Online visitors can see a lot more than what used to hang on the walls. For example, the museum could display fewer than 1,000 photos, paintings, sculptures and other artifacts. During the renovation, online visitors can download 16 virtual exhibits and 4,000 objects at any time.” New Jersey Online 03/04/01

Friday March 2

WRITING A WRONG: What do most authors do when they get a bad review? Well, absolutely nothing, other than maybe complaining to friends and moping. “But there’s still an enduring category of author who feels that a bad review is no mere difference of opinion, however ill-informed and wrongheaded the reviewer’s take may be. It’s an injustice that must be remedied.” But, calling critics at home? Offering bounties? Threatening legal recourse? Come on… Salon 3/02/01

WORTH A REFUND: As part of the massive settlement of Christie’s and Sotheby’s price-fixing scandal, the auction houses have agreed to refund foreign art dealers and collectors the fees charged on their transactions over the last six years. The Age (Melbourne) 3/02/01

NEW APPROACHES IN AN OLD GENRE: Landscape painting has been around forever, it seems. Early cave drawings were, in a sense, landscape art. But landscapes have changed greatly in the recent past. Environmental destruction. Pollution. Industrialization. Black-top. A new breed of landscape painters is producing art that notices. ArtNews 03/01

STARBUCK’S ON THE NILE? The Egyptian Railway Authority plans to convert Cairo’s historic train station into a shopping mall, “to increase the revenue of the station and thus allow us to upgrade the whole system.” No, argue preservationists. Its “a historical catastrophe… a national disgrace… doing away with history in return for a few bucks.” Al-Ahram (Egypt) 02/28/01

VAN GOGH’S ASTRONOMY: It’s not unusual to know the year a famous painting was done, but the exact hour? Van Gogh’s “White House at Night” has been pinned down quite precisely: 7 PM on the 16th of June, 1890. The information comes, not from Van Gogh, but from astronomers who studied the position of Venus in his nighttime sky. New Scientist 02/28/01

RETHINKING THE MUSEUM: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Director David Ross is largely responsible for SFMOMA’s new computer generated-art show, “010101: Art in Technological Times.” He’s also a vocal proponent of incorporating new technologies into museums. “The contemporary museum’s role today is no longer purely as a vehicle for showcasing art, but also as a space to discuss the contrast of values and ideas.” Wired 3/01/01

Thursday March 1

DESTROYING ART IN AFGHANISTAN: Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban run an oppressive regime. Now the country’s Ministry of Vice and Virtue has announced plans to destroy every statue in the country, including the world’s tallest Buddha, almost 2,000 years old. Why? “Worshippers might be tempted to pay homage to the idols, the Taliban’s youthful leaders have decided, even though Afghanistan is devoid of Buddhists.” The Globe & Mail (Canada) 03/01/01

THE DOME. NOW LEEDS. WHERE HAVE THE TOURISTS GONE? Leeds museum was the the first attempt to run a British National museum as a business. A private contractor was brought in, along with displays from the Tower of London. Initial estimates were for a million visitors a year, more or less. Less is what they got. Last year, 180,000. Consequently, the Royal Armouries “took over responsibility for running the museum…. leaving the private company to retain some services: catering, car parking and corporate hospitality.” The Art Newspaper 03/01/01

Wednesday February 28

• CRACKING DOWN ON ILLEGAL ART IMPORTS: Until now, when the US Customs Office seized art it suspected was being illegally imported, it had to prove that the importer was not the real owner. Now, the US has collaborated with Italy to tighten import laws – from now on importers will have to prove they own the work, an important shift in the burden of proof. The New York Times 02/28/01 (one-time registration required for access)
• BINARY ART: San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art has opened “010101,” an exhibit of virtual reality pieces, sculptures of robotic forms, and computer-animated video screen-based “paintings.” But the museum insists that this is technology in the service of art, not the other way around. Wired 02/28/01
  • TECHNO-ART HAS A HISTORY: Although advances in computer power have expanded the range of palettes available to artists, technology-based art is nothing new. Futuristic exhibits were quite common even back in the 1950s. Wired 02/28/01
• ARTIST AS FILM STAR: “No feature film about an artist is likely to tell us anything new about the artist. This is not to say that the genre is an unmitigated dud.” And the new Jackson Pollock film is rich in possibility. “The annoying thing is that this may not be moonshine. Pollock is a great, writhing test case for a movie, because, for once, so many of the ripest and cheesiest conventions of the Hollywood bio-pic turn out, disconcertingly, to be matters of fact.” The New Yorker 02/26/01
• MORE BEANBAGS AND LAVA LAMPS WOULD HELP: New York’s Museum of Modern Art has unveiled an exciting new exhibit of . . . office furniture. “Workspheres” purports to bring the future of personal work space to a cubicle-imprisoned public, but couldn’t the designers have made the whole thing a little more, well, cosy? Newsday 02/28/01
• A CURE FOR BLOCKBUSTERITIS: If museums get tangled up in themselves chasing the next blockbuster show, maybe a New World Order for museums is called for. Maybe something French perhaps? ArtsJournal 02/28/01

Tuesday February 27

• TRAIN-STATION-AS-GALLERY: Some 14 percent of the artwork in the British national collection are not on display in the nation’s museums or public buildings. Now a member of parliament proposes that the unseen artwork be brought out and displayed in train stations and airports. BBC 02/27/01
• USING WHAT YOU’VE GOT: Pittsburgh’s abandoned steel mills can be a desolate and depressing reminder of a bygone era of comfortable employment and worker prosperity. But now, Pittsburgh has carved out a new era of prosperity for itself, and is turning its attentions to considering whether its monuments to the steel age can be transformed into another piece of the city’s artistic renaissance. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 02/27/01
• NAZI-STOLEN ART IN AUSTRALIA: “The New South Wales Art Gallery, one of the first Australian institutions to review its collection, says nine of the gallery’s 40,000 artworks could have been among the many paintings stolen by the Nazis.” ABCNews Online 02/27/01
• DUSTING OFF THE OLD V&A: London’s beleaguered Victoria & Albert Museum, trying to shore up sagging attendance and public perceptions of incompetence, has hired a marketing company to work on the museum’s image. A report earlier this month “attributed the museum’s difficulties to poor marketing and an excessively highbrow image.” The Guardian (London) 02/27/01

Monday February 26

• PROVENANCE PROBLEMS: Art collections around the world have taken major strides in the last couple years to repatriate any artwork plundered by the Nazis. Now Australia is also taking a close look at its galleries’ holdings and has already found more than 100 major works with dubious gaps in their ownership. “It is unlikely that there is any major collection that has been active in acquiring in the last 50 years that doesn’t have something that came from a [Nazi] source.” Sydney Morning Herald 2/26/01
• THE MUSEUM EVERYONE LOVES TO HATE: A National Audit Office report announced that London’s V&A Museum receives the lion’s share of government funding, although its attendance continues to dwindle. But has the media unfairly trumpeted the negative charges and overlooked the report’s more balanced claims? The Times (London) 2/26/01

Sunday February 25

• SO, HOW’S THE ART? Lost in the media blitz over Rudy Giuliani’s latest feud with the Brooklyn Museum of Art is the fact that there’s actually a pretty good exhibition going on at BMA. “When the din dies down and the posturing is played out, what remains will be a stolid, serviceable exhibit that, without the jockeying of egos and the meddling of the media, would have remained on the periphery of public consciousness.” Newsday 02/25/01
• WHITNEY’S TRIPLE THOUGHT: The Whitney Museum’s new visionary-for-hire, Rem Koolhaas, is revolutionizing the architecture of New York’s museums, calling to mind an old catchphrase for historically informed art. “The triple thought is the realization that beauty is not some transcendant, eternal abstraction but something that arises from historical circumstances and that can enlarge the historical awareness of an audience.” New York Times 02/25/01 (one-time registration required for access)
• MR. GEHRY GOES TO CLEVELAND: The city by the lake is not what you would call adventurous in its architectural preferences. Indeed, Cleveland’s skyline, if you can call it that, consists of a few perfunctory towers and high-rises that seek more to divert the eye than focus it. So when a Frank Gehry-designed building begins to rise on a local university campus, it tends to attract attention. The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 02/25/01
• ART FROM THE LEFT BRAIN: Harvard physicist Eric Heller’s new computerized art exhibit opened this week at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Compton Gallery. Heller is the latest in a growing line of scientists who are determined to bring the beauty of their microscopic and invisible worlds to the museum-going public. Boston Herald 02/25/01

Saturday Fenruary 24

• WHAT WENT WRONG? The Italian avant-garde movement was dominant in the early part of the 20th Century. Furturism, a preamble of sorts to the later surrealist fad, was sweeping Europe, and Italy’s artists were right in the middle of it all. But somehow, amid political chaos and extremist coopting of futurism’s ideals, Italy got shoved to the curb. International Herald Tribune 02/24/01

Friday February 23

• THE MOST EXPENSIVE MUSEUM IN LONDON: London’s Victoria & Albert Museum “received more than £30 million worth of government funding last year, second only to the British Museum which was awarded £34.7 million.” But attendance continued a slide, falling by 13 percent. “This represents a cost to the Government of nearly £24 for each visitor, the highest for any museum in London in the last seven years. It compares to £5.10 for each visitor to the National Portrait Gallery, £6.40 for the British Museum and £7.90 for the Tate Britain.” The Independent (London) 02/22/01
  • MAYBE A REASON WHY? The National Audit Office (NAO), a government spending watchdog, said most people “have no idea” what is inside the Victoria & Albert Museum. “The museum, which once advertised itself as “an ace cafe with a museum attached”, has responded by saying it can redeem itself.” BBC 02/23/01
• MUSEUM DIRECTOR HAULED BEFORE GOVERMENT COMMITTEE: The director of Australia’s National Gallery has been hauled up before a government committee to answer charges by his former chief of Australian art that management of the museum is in disarray. The curator said Brian Kennedy’s “management style had resulted in exhibition planning being in disarray. Art historians were bogged down in bureaucracy and morale among staff was abysmal.” Sydney Morning Herald 02/23/01
• RUDY’S MOTIVATION: So what’s NY mayor Rudy Giuliani’s motivation for attacking the Brooklyn Museum again? “If this isn’t a media stunt for the exhibition, then it’s a media stunt for Giuliani. What else can it be, when Rudy with a straight face says he is looking to pack his commission on decency with “decent people”? Does he mean that only religious leaders need apply? Or that he wants only people who think exactly like he does, who will vote the way he tells them?” New York Post 02/22/01
• TOUGH TALK ON THE DOME: The man picked to rescue London’s Millennium Dome is skeptical about its chances. Asked if the dome could ever be a viable attraction again, he said, “What do you mean again? It never was. It lost £131m as a trading entity in one year…. This place has been a victim of one dud financial estimate after another.” The Guardian (London) 02/23/01
• A GEORGE THAT COSTS MORE THAN A BUCK: For 33 years, the Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington has been one of the best-known images at the Smithsonian Institution. But all that time it’s been on loan, and now the owner wants to sell it. He’s given the Smithsonian the first chance, but if they can’t come up with $20 million, it will likely go elsewhere. Washington Post 02/22/01
• MONUMENT UNDER GLASS: The 13th Century cloister of St. Michael’s in the town of Hildesheim, about 19 miles south of Hannover, Germany was declared a World Monument by the UN. But the structure is falling down, being eaten away by the elements. The solution? Put the whole thing under glass. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 02/23/01
• ANCIENT MARINERS WERE BETTER THAN WE THOUGHT: Probing the Eastern Mediterranean for a lost Israeli submarine, an underwater search team discovered a 2300-year-old merchant vessel, 10,000 feet down and 300 miles from the nearest land. The discovery may revise theories of ancient navigation. “We’d always believed that ships hugged the coast and stayed in sight of the land. This is the nail in the coffin on that theory.” MSNBC (AP) 02/22/01
• BARBIE CAN HAVE A SEX LIFE. SORT OF: An artist in Utah has been using Barbie dolls “to critique the materialistic and gender-oppressive values he believes the doll embodies.” Specifically, he takes pictures of the doll, sometimes in sexual positions. Toymaker Mattel wanted an injunction blocking his pictures, but a US Circuit Court of Appeals said he can continue, pending a fall trial. San Francisco Chronicle (AP) 02/22/01

Thursday February 22

• MONUMENTAL DISINTEREST: Last December, the Korean government unveiled plans to build “The Ring of Seoul,” a “200-meter-diameter ring structure made up of steel beams and glass panels. The Ring was to be erected next to the World Cup main stadium in Sangam-dong. More than half of the estimated budget was to come from the private sector. However, not a single corporation formally agreed with the foundation to provide funds.” So the plans may be scrapped. Korea Herald 02/22/01
• INCHING TO INFLUENCE: Why did New York mayor Rudy Giuliani attack the Brooklyn Museum last week? He had to know he couldn’t win his argument, after losing last year in the courts over the BMA’s “Sensation” show. “Giuliani may have lost his lawsuit over the ‘Sensation’ exhibition, but the museum lost the war, so to speak. Its authority, too—I mean as a serious art institution—has suffered irreparable damage, and its legal victory in the courts over the Last Supper photograph, if it should come to that, won’t do anything to save it. And this time around, it is doubtful that even Mayor Giuliani’s attack will do much for the museum’s box-office coffers.” New York Observer 02/21/01
• TEAMING UP: Two Connecticut musuems have joined forces to bring together a unique exhibit of American modernist art. That many of the paintings and sketches on display take Parisian life as their subject is a reflection of the global attitude towards American art in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Still, Childe Hassam and Maurice Prendergast, the two artists on display, were integral in the process of gaining respect for serious American artists. Hartford Courant 02/22/01
• STRUGGLING BLACK MUSEUMS: There are more black American museums now than a decade ago, but they’re struggling. “Telling African-American history can often offend donors if they feel that the history isn’t the truth or places a particular person or group of people in a bad light. If it is perceived that our museums are becoming corporately run, then the community can often respond negatively, and this shows in attendance figures. On the flip side, if a corporation sees that there is no community support, it may be reluctant to give.” New York Times 02/22/01 (one-time registration required for access)
• A THANKLESS JOB: A last-minute appointee of President Clinton is poised to have a tremendous impact on the way Washington, D.C. looks, architecturally. Richard Friedman, the new chairman of the National Capital Planning Commission, will shape the look of any new monuments, have veto power over major buildings, and will probably find himself smack in the middle of the controversy surrounding the new World War II Memorial. Boston Globe 02/22/01
• YOUTH MOVEMENT: The city of Pittsburgh, in an effort to continue the architectural and cultural renaissance that has swept over the city in the last decade, is staging a competition for young designers. The entrants will be asked to “come up with ideas for making eight historic public spaces in the city more attractive and more usable.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 02/22/01
• A SIDE OF BACON: A large show of the work of Francis Bacon includes 900 items – including paintings, drawings and sketches. But there is some question whether Bacon made them all. “If a large number of the works are deemed to be doubtful, then the uncritical exhibition of this material will muddy our comprehension of Bacon’s achievement. What is at stake is Bacon’s artistic identity. For, until you first determine what is and what is not by an artist’s own hand, you cannot say anything else meaningful about him.” The Telegraph (London) 02/22/01

Wednesday February 21

• NEW STORIES OF AUSTRALIA: After two decades in the planning, the new National Museum of Australia will soon open. It will be Australia’s first “cultural history” museum and pledges to portray the stories of the Australian people. The Age (Melbourne) 02/21/01
  • A COMPLICATED JOB: The new National Museum of Australia is “a sort of satirical embodiment of Australia – a comfortable collection of the past, a cynical view of the present, and a closed view of the future – and maybe that’s what museums should do.” The Age (Melbourne) 02/21/01
• BLOCKBUSTERITIS: Museums are more and more obsessed by the blockbuster show, the need to program “event” exhibitions designed to pull in the crowds to prove their success. It’s long been debated whether such shows serve art. But do they even serve the institutions themselves? ArtsJournal 02/21/01
• LIKING THE ODDS: A slug of National Lottery arts funding in the past five years has resulted in a wealth of projects in Scotland. “A total fund of just under £85 million has been spent on 83 building projects to March 2000,” and the diversity and scope is remarkable. The Scotsman 02/21/01
• THE PROPER CONTEXT: Should “indigenous art, once removed from the context of its making, should be assessed within the dominant Western canon of art history? While the sway between ethnographic and imperialist positions still exists, the primary emphasis in critical visual assessment now comfortably rests on surface quality.” Sydney Morning Herald 02/21/01

Tuesday February 20

• URBAN RENEWAL? One of Boston’s most heavily-traversed bridges – the Longfellow, spanning the Charles River – has come in for some unsolicited visual upgrades recently. Specifically, someone is slowly covering it with multi-hued paint splotches. Vandalism? Maybe. “But let’s imagine, for a minute, that it was meant as something bigger. A statement of rebellion. An artistic expression. Imagine that these splotches, love or hate them, have some meaning.” Boston Globe 02/20/01
• 200 OTHER PHOTOS: Giuliani’s latest run-in with the Brooklyn Museum of Art has drawn visitors and media attention to Renee Cox’s “Yo Mama’s Last Supper” – but what about the hundreds of other interesting photographs on display, and the lost significance of the fact that “it’s the first ever large-scale museum exhibition devoted solely to the work of African-American artists”? Newsweek 2/17/01
• THOROUGHLY MODERN MET: In the midst of all the controversy surrounding The Whitney’s “American Century” exhibition, MOMA’s reshuffling of it’s collection, and the Guggenheiming of the world, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has quietly offered up an extensive, if somewhat conservative, collection of 20th Century art. Arranged chronologically and presented as being basically no different from art of any other era, the Met’s “Development of Modern Art” exhibit is perhaps the most accessible collection currently on the scene. New York Press 02/20/01
• SNICKERING FROM THE GRAVE: The French painter Balthus, who died Sunday – and spent a good portion of his career defending his own work against charges of pornography – would likely have relished the recent dust-up between Giuliani and the Brooklyn Museum of Art. “Balthus’s American legacy is one illustration of how our puritanism and hypocrisy get us into cultural binds. Like many Europeans, Balthus found ridiculous the American assumption that art is a moral occupation.” New York Times 2/20/01 (one-time registration required for access)
• COULD BE FRAUD: Scotland Yard has begun a fraud inquiry into the British Museum’s purchase of the wrong, cheaper kind of limestone for its new #1.7 million South Portico in 1999. “The council could now order the portico to be pulled down and rebuilt using the right stone [or prosecute for a breach of planning laws.” The Independent (London) 2/20/01
• THE EROS PERIOD? Three hundred of Picasso’s most graphically erotic paintings, drawings, and engravings are going on display this week at the Picasso Museum in Paris. Many of them have been hidden in cellars and bank vaults and never before publicly exhibited. The show will travel to Montreal and Barcelona, but “the brothel scenes, rape and voyeurism are considered indecent in countries such as the United States, where there are no plans to stage the exhibition.” The Times (London) 2/20/01

Monday February 19

• MASSIVE ART SWINDLE: It’s looking like Michel Cohen’s multi-million-dollar swindle of Sotheby’s and several of the world’s top art dealers isn’t $50 million as previously reported. “Now it looks like even that record figure will go higher considerably. One dealer in the know even pegs the figure at potentially double that amount.” Forbes.com 02/19/01
• THE USUAL SUSPECTS WEIGH IN: Vistors packed the opening of the Brooklyn Museum of Art’s photography show attacked by New York mayor Rudy Giuliani last week. Reverend Al Sharpton defended the controversial photo attacked by the mayor: “This has nothing to do with Jesus. This has something to do with censorship.” New York Post 02/18/01
  • THE NEW VICTIMS: New York mayor Rudy Giuliani’s attack on Renée Cox’s “Yo Mama’s Last Supper,” a 15-foot photograph patterned after Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” in the new Brooklyn Museum photography show uses the language of victimhood. “It’s become increasingly common for those who resent criticism of Christianity and the Catholic Church to play the victim, portraying themselves as targets of hate speech and even hate crimes.” Salon 02/18/01
• THE LANGUISHING FRENCH ART MARKET: France is one of the great storehouses of great art. Yet its sales of art at auction are small – about 13 percent of the world trade. “France is continuing to haemorrhage art to overseas salerooms, while its bureaucrats twiddle their thumbs over reforming its protectionist art market.” The Telegraph (London) 02/19/01
• TOO MUCH LOVE? It takes some kind of balls to bring the life of the genius behind that painting to the screen, and Ed Harris’ directorial debut, ‘Pollock,’ is clearly a labor of love, tempered with a healthy amount of respect – perhaps too much. Yet there’s so much measured delicacy to “Pollock” that it’s almost the antithesis of who and what Pollock was.” Salon 02/18/01
• READING POMPEII: When Vesuvius erupted on Pompeii, it reduced libraries of documents into lumps of undeciperable charcoal. Now “American scientists have developed a technology for reading the carbonized papyri excavated in the 18th century from the magnificent seafront villa owned by Julius Caesar’s father-in-law.” It could be “the most significant rediscovery of classical literature since the Renaissance.” Discover 02/18/01
• WHAT IF IT WERE MINE? Artist Michael Landy’s project in which he systematically destroys everything he owns has captivated British critics. “I began to imagine what would happen if this was everything I owned. Everything I had ever written. Every photo of a loved one. Every work of art on my walls.” Sunday Times (London) 02/18/01
• BALTHUS DEAD AT 92: French-born painter Balthus, considered one of the 20th century’s finest realist painters, has died in his home at Rossiniere in Switzerland.” The New York Times 02/19/01 (one-time registration required for access)
• SHOE-IN: Former Philipines first lady Imelda Marcos has opened a museum to showcase her shoe collection. She’s gathered “220 of her finest sets of footwear to be resurrected and turned into a tourist attraction, prompting a remarkable change in Mrs Marcos’ fortunes.” The Independent (London) 02/18/01

Sunday February 18

• MUTED OPENING: Plain old curiosity and not moral outrage appeared to have brought a stream of retirees, tourists and art enthusiasts to the Brooklyn Museum. No protesters screamed to be heard like the ones who lined up by the dozens two years ago, some to chastise the mayor’s stand and others to protest the artwork itself.” The New York Times 02/17/01 (one-time registration required for access)
• YO! FAME: Renée Cox, the 43-year-old artist who has drawn the mayor’s ire, has been a minor artist. “She has courted attention before, and she knows a thing or two about the celebrity business, having been a fashion photographer.” The New York Times 02/17/01 (one-time registration required for access)
• ART AS SHOW BIZ: “Artists agree that they are no longer content to be recognized only by their peers and a small circle of critics, curators, collectors and dealers; rather, they want to participate in a larger cultural arena. Looking at art is no longer a private elite event. It has a huge public audience. After all, the Phillips Collection is going to Las Vegas! The audience for modern art has multiplied, and people like spectacle. Art has become part of popular entertainment.” The New York Times 02/18/01 (one-time registration required for access)
• LIFE LITE: Artist Michael Landy’s art project destroying all of his possessions systematically has stirred up an enormous reaction in Britain. “When I told people about ‘Break Down’ some laughed and a few were angry. ‘Anger? That’s good.’ There is no end product, for the artist or the art market. By February 24, Landy will have nothing left but his memories, and the ladder to the gantry which he bought himself for a little more than £400.” The Guardian (London) 02/17/01
• WHITNEY TO CLOSE OUTPOST? The Stamford branch of the Whitney Museum will likely shut its doors after 20 years on March 31. “The Stamford branch’s fate has been in question since Champion International, which gave the Whitney a free lease in its building for 18 1/2 years and funded museum programs, was acquired by International Paper last summer.” Stamford Advocate 02/16/01
• BUILDING BUILDING BUILDING… The arts building boom isn’t over in London, where the plans keep on coming – here’s a list of another couple-hundred-million-pounds worth of projects this year. The Sunday Times (London) 02/18/01
• MICHAEL GRAVES WINS GOLD MEDAL: Architect Michael Graves wins the coveted Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects. “Graves is a ranking member of an exclusive club of famous architects whose services are in constant demand. There is no definitive membership list, nor an established set of standards to get in. It takes a combination of talent, vision, ambition, discipline, savvy, a sense of timing, and sheer luck.” Washington Post 02/17/01

Friday February 16

• ANOTHER DECENCY DEBATE? New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has once again denounced an exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of Art as “disgusting,” “outrageous,” and “anti-Catholic.” Giuliani has declared that he would appoint a commission to set “decency standards” and keep such work out of museums that receive public money. “That sounds like Berlin in 1939.” New York Times 2/16/01 (one-time registration required for access)
  • DRAWING FIRE: The Brooklyn Museum of Art was the site of last year’s “Sensation” show, which led the mayor to freeze the museum’s city subsidies, a decision which was later overruled in federal court. The current artist in the mayor’s sights is Renèe Cox, whose photo of a nude black woman as Christ at the Last Supper is part of the current exhibit of contemporary black photographers. Giuliani has threatened to take his complaint all the way to the Supreme Court this time. Cox says, “Get over it. I don’t produce work that necessarily looks good over somebody’s couch.” Yahoo! News 2/15/01
  • COX RESPONDS: “There’s nothing sexual about it. If we are all made in God’s image, why can’t a woman be Christ? We are the givers of life!” Salon 02/16/01
• CANALETTO TO THE RESCUE: Climate-change specialists and preservationists hoping to save Venice from damaging floods and sinking are studying Canaletto’s 18^th-century paintings for clues to what the city’s sustainable water levels should be. Canaletto painted his cityscapes using a camera obscura, and thus they are a remarkably accurate measure of optimal flood levels. BBC 2/15/01
• WHEN IS BIG TOO BIG? Berlin’s colossal new Chancellery building, more than 1,000 feet long and the brainchild of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, raises questions about how the city should best rebuild and reinvent its civic identity. “With the reconstruction of a united Berlin now about half complete, the city is still enmeshed in debate over whether the capital should exercise dutiful restraint or is now free to give exuberant expression to German power, as this Chancellery might suggest.” New York Times 2/16/01 (one-time registration required for access)
• GIANTS IN THE EARTH: Archaeologists have found extraordinary treasures, and perhaps a medical mystery, in the tombs of an extinct Peruvian culture. The Moche, who thrived between 100 and 800 AD, were artistic, scientific, and – some of them at least – uncommonly tall. National Geographic 03/01

Thursday February 15

• EDIFACE COMPLEX: What do large buildings say about their owners? “Great buildings seem linked to the faltering fortunes of overweening egos. The pattern: Giant buildings go up, markets go down. The Singer (1908) and Metropolitan Life (1909) buildings marked the depression of 1907-1910. Three of Manhattan’s greatest corporate landmarks – 40 Wall Street (1929), the Chrysler Building (1930) and the Empire State Building (1931) – coincided with the beginning of the Great Depression.” The Standard 02/12/01
• CALDER – HANGING AROUND: The family of sculptor Alexander Calder has chosen the late artist’s birthplace, Philadelphia, as the site of a museum dedicated three generations of the Calder family of artists. “Although the three Calders will be represented, the new museum is expected to focus largely on the most important of the sculptors, Alexander “Sandy” Calder, inventor of the mobile.” The $50 million project will be designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando and is scheduled to open in 2004. (Calder Foundation: http://www.calder.org/). Philadelphia Inquirer 2/15/01
• BREAKDOWN PALACE: Artist Michael Landy’s “Break Down” show, in which he invites visitors to witness the “public destruction” of his life (“feeding his clothes, furniture, love letters, car, artwork, passport, etc, into an industrial granulator”) “certainly engenders a good debate in the pub afterwards. One mover in the art world told me: ‘We’ve just seen the death of British art.’” The Guardian 2/15/01
• A WALKING CONTRADICTION: Arthur Erickson has been hailed as a visionary, and derided as pompous and out-of-touch. He has lived high on the hog, and lost everything. He has built architectural wonders for use as low-income housing, and designed a grand concert hall widely considered to be the ugliest and most acoustically inferior in North America. In fact, it is the inconsistency of the man that makes him so interesting. The Globe & Mail (Toronto) 02/15/01

Wednesday February 14

• THE GREAT GRECO: Worldwide, which artist drew the biggest crowds last year? Cézanne? Van Gogh? Nope, it was El Greco. At the National Gallery in Athens, he drew 7000 people a day. The Met, Guggenheim, and Whitney drew the biggest US crowds; in the UK, it was the National Gallery. The Art Newspaper 02/14/01
• DECONSTRUCTING MY LIFE: Artist Michael Landy is deconstructing his life. Literally. “First, he’s made an inventory of the 7,006 things in his possession – everything from his car and fridge to his bed, CD player, art works, records, clothes, personal papers, toothpaste, soap . . . everything. Once listed (the mind-boggling inventory hangs on one wall of the store), each item is placed in a clear plastic bag, which is then numbered and put in a yellow tray. In due course, the tray is placed on a moving conveyor belt which snakes and loops around the department store like a miniature roller coaster. What with the blue uniforms and yellow trays, the whole scene really looks rather festive. But it’s not. The ultimate destination of the conveyor belt is a machine that grinds anything put in it into fine powder.” The Telegraph (London) 02/14/01
• WHAT HAPPENS IF NOBODY WANTS THE JOB? Before London’s Victoria & Albert Museum selected its new director last week, headhunters had offered the job to several international candidates, but had been turned down. “It is known they encouraged quite a number of people to apply from all over the world. It subtly undermines the candidature in the end.” The Independent (London) 02/11/01
  • JONESING FOR THE V&A: Many believe that the Victoria & Albert Museum needs a charismatic figure to pull it out of a prolonged slump. But Mark Jones, named last week as new director, “is seen as a subtle networker, a scholarly figure, adept at behind-the-scenes politicking but unlikely to stamp his personality on the V&A in a radical shake-up. Yet that is exactly what some critics claim is needed to save the 149-year-old museum from dwindling attendances and a nightmarishly bureaucratic way of working.” The Guardian (London) 02/13/01

Tuesday February 13

• ONBOARD AUCTIONS: “Art auctions, once a rarity on the high seas, are finding a berth on most every cruise line these days. In an era of fare slashing, art sales have become an on-board profit center. On some ships, you can’t walk down halls without tripping over easels of works for sale.” USA Today 02/12/01
• PAINTIN’ PUTIN: Russian president Vladimire Putin has become an object of art. “It’s a cult of personality. Indeed, the paintings are similar to the hagiographic works of socialist realism that proliferated in the Soviet era. Although Putin has publicly asked not to be immortalized in works of art, he has inevitably become the object of eulogistic pop culture since becoming president — and the forms have been as varied as a children’s book, plaster busts and even a nature walk in the northwestern town of Izborsk that traces every step he made on his short visit there.” Moscow Times 02/13/01
• CASTING A BACKWARDS GLANCE: There was a time when plaster casts of art objects were a big thing. Artists learned from them, collectors prized them. Then they went out of fashion, as the art world prefered to collect only originals. Now “there is renewed interest in plaster cast collections. Their historical and aesthetic value have been rediscovered. Collections that were destroyed or heavily damaged during World War II are being restored and enlarged in Berlin and Munich.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 02/13/01
• IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST: The debate over the worth, or lack thereof, of public art (murals, outdoor sculptures, etc.) is not easily resolved. Even in a city like Philadelphia, which is swimming in such art, there is little evidence either way on whether the culture boosting has any effect on the public. Nonetheless, the experimenting continues… Philadelphia Inquirer 02/13/01

Monday February 12

• WHAT IF THEY GAVE AN AWARD AND NOBODY CAME? Canada’s Millennium Prize for visual art offers a $50,000 award, and, hopefully, some attention for the artists who compete for it. But the exercise has received scant attention at home, even though the homegrown artists chosen for the shortlist have acheived more attention outside the country than in it. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 02/12/01
• FINDING RELIGIOUS ART: A new cathedral in Los Angeles faces a problem – where to find artists who can make the religious images for the project. “These artists were not selected for their connection with the Roman Catholic Church. Indeed, most of the nine commissioned to date say that although they consider themselves to be religious, or spiritual, they are not church-going.” Los Angeles Times 02/11/01
• MELBOURNE MUSEUM STAFF UPSET: Workers at the new Melbourne Art Museum are angry about news Legionella bacteria was found in the museum’s air systems. The workers’ union says the museum “had mishandled news of the discovery – the latest in what it said was a long line of problems involving working conditions.” The Age (Melbourne) 02/12/01
• A FAIR SETTLEMENT? Experts are endorsing the recent $512 million settlement in the Sotheby’s/Christie’s lawsuit. “The structure of the settlement, the experts concluded, would help to stave off the risks of insolvency for both companies, especially the publicly held Sotheby’s, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange. They calculated the chance of a default by Sotheby’s over the next five years at 9.16 percent, a probability that would more than double if the company’s bonds, now rated at junk status, were downgraded further.” The New York Times 02/12/01 (one-time registration required for access)
• AFGHANI ART DESTROYED? Afghanistan’s National Museum lost much of its art during the country’s civil war. But now reports say the ruling Taliban have destroyed more than a dozen ancient statues in the museum. “The Taleban minister of information and culture has denied the reports but has refused to allow journalists to enter the museum to check them. Reports started to circulate last week that the Taleban were destroyed non-Islamic artefacts in the museum, including statues of the Buddha dating back nearly 2,000 years.” BBC 02/12/01
• GREEK ARTIFACTS RETURNED: In 1990, 274 ancient Greek artifacts were stolen from the Corinth Archaeological Museum. They later found their way to the United States, where some of them were sold by Christie’s auction house in 1997. That Christie’s “failed to recognize immediately that the antiquities they were dealing with were stolen is surprising because the theft was widely publicized.” Now the pieces have been recovered and returned to Greece. Archaeology 02/01

Sunday February 11

• ART DAMAGED IN QUAKE: Some of India’s monuments and historic sites have been damaged in last week’s earthquake. Los Angeles Times 02/10/01
• HOPE FOR THE V&A? London’s Victoria and Albert Museum has been a mess for decades. Now “the reliably clumsy V&A trustees have finally announced the name of the new director. The result could be good news. It could be terrible news. Who knows? Mark Jones may not be an entirely unknown quantity – he has been running the National Museums of Scotland since 1992 – but he is untested at the highest level and was certainly the darkest of the three horses in the race.” The Sunday Times (London) 02/11/01
• THE NEW ATHENEUM: Hartford’s Wadsworth Athenium Museum has chosen Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos of UN Studio, based in Amsterdam as architects for its ambitious new makeover. “Van Berkel, an architect with an eye for seamless, flowing lines and modernist geometric patterns, and Bos, an art historian and writer and the articulator of the firm’s working philosophy, will design the plans for a new building and for the extensive renovations of the museum’s five contiguous, historic buildings on its scenic but crowded downtown campus. Confusing internal geography has become a quirky trademark of the Hartford museum, America’s oldest public art museum in continuous operation.” Hartford Courant 02/11/01

Friday February 9

• $50 MILLION SWINDLE: A New York dealer may have swindled Sotheby’s and several of the art world’s most savvy art dealers for as much as $50 million, which would be one of the greatest art swindles of all time. The auction house loaned Michel Cohen millions of dollars to buy blue chip art, but Cohen evidently got behind in the stock market and was unable to pay back the money. Forbes.com 02/08/01
• SO MUCH FOR THE FREE MARKET: Until now, Austrian museums were taken care of by the state – “the state distributed budget money and each year collected the income earned by the museums, instead of leaving it to the institutions themselves for subsequent projects. Now it is the museums’ turn to prove that they are successful, to overcome antiquated forms of organization, to show entrepreneurial imagination and successfully come to grips with the ever greater need for financing in the art world.” And they don’t appear to be succeeding at it. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 02/08/01
• AUCTIONEERS ALARM AUSTRALIAN DEALERS: Auction houses in Australia have moved into contemporary art sales in a big way. “The latest move by the two international salerooms to seize another slice of the Australian art market, however, has alarmed some dealers. With the auction rooms now acting increasingly as retailers of art, their impact on commercial dealers has in some cases been catastrophic.” Sydney Morning Herald 02/08/01
• WHITNEY BIENNIAL CHOOSES ORGANIZER: For the first time in its history the last Whitney Biennial chose a group of curators outside the museum to put together the show. For the next biennial, Larry Rinder, the Whitney’s curator of contemporary art, has been appointed chief organizer for the next Biennial, set to open in March 2002. New York Times 2/08/01 (one-time registration required for access)
• STRUGGLING TOWARDS SOLVENCY: The Barnes Collection is one of those museums that seems destined to spend eternity fighting for its financial life. Based in a small suburb of Philadelphia, and displaying an extensive collection of American impressionist art, the Barnes has been near death recently. But a series of grants, all announced in the last four months, promises new life for the foundation. Philadelphia Inquirer 02/09/01
• ART OR SCHADENFREUDE? fAMOUS is the title of a new exhibition in San Francisco that is made up entirely of defunct dot-coms. Screens show abandoned web sites, and sculptures represent the decline of the dot-com culture. There’s a certain sick voyeurist feel to it all, but it’s kind of fun, too. NPR’s Morning Edition 02/08/01 (RealAudio file)
• CH-CH-CH-CHIA! The hottest new thing in New York hotel architecture? Grass. Inside. Seriously. Not to mention bamboo, ficus, and ferns, all of them carefully planted and maintained not as decorative add-ons, but as an integral part of the building design. In a city with precious little greenery outside, an architect is leading the movement to bring nature into new construction. USA Today 02/09/01

Thursday February 8

• “ROSEBUD IN WINTER”? Los Angeles’ Latino Museum has restructured in an attempt to revive itself. “The financially strapped institution, which opened its doors in 1998, has not mounted an exhibition or presented other public programming since August, when claims surfaced indicating that the museum was out of money and owed nearly $500,000 to creditors and employees.” Los Angeles Times 02/07/01
• “UNRATIONALIZING” THE HOLOCAUST: Berlin’s new Holocaust memorial will consist of 2700 gray stone pillars, scattered over a a four-and-a-half acre site. Architect Peter Eisenman says he wanted to do something “that was not either kitsch or nostalgia or representational. I hated Schindler’s List…. I hated any of these things that attempt to sort of make a theme park out of the Holocaust.” The Globe and Mail (Toronto) 02/07/01
• SANTA FE SHAMS: Georgia O’Keeffe’s reputation has waxed and waned for decades, yet last year’s discovery that 29 of her “Canyon Site” watercolors were actually fakes wrought greater havoc on her legacy than anything ever had. Herewith a detailed look into the mystery of the false attributions. The Telegraph (London) 2/08/01
• THIRD AND RISING: In an effort to rival the major players in the highly competitive auction business, Phillips – the third-largest auction house – has bought a prized collection of 19th-century paintings and drawings that includes Cézannes and van Goghs. The seven works (including Cézanne’s signature “Montagne Ste.-Victoire”) are expected to bring more than $80 million at auction this spring. New York Times 2/08/01 (one-time registration required for access)
• WHAT’S A MUSE WORTH? PICASSO’S DRAWS £3M: A 1942 Picasso portrait of Dora Maar sold at auction for more than £3 million, about £1 million more than had been expected. Maar, an established artist herself, was for nine years Picasso’s lover and muse. The painting, called “Buste de Femme”, was one of those about which the artist said, “I have no doubt that the war is in these paintings.” BBC 02/07/01
• BRITISH MUSEUM MIGHT CHARGE: The British Museum has warned the government it might start charging admission for the first time in its history if the museum doesn’t get some help with a large VAT tax bill. London Evening Standard 02/08/01

Wednesday February 7

• THE MODERN MUSEUM…ER, FUN HOUSE: Time was when art museums were temples of decorum, staid, stately and places in which to be contemplative. “But the “blockbuster” mentality that began developing in the 1960s helped to transform many art museums into all-purpose cultural emporia. Increasingly, success is measured by quantity, not quality, by the take at the box office rather than at the bar of aesthetic discrimination.” New Criterion 02/01
• THE TASK OF REINVENTION: Mark Jones, director of the National Museums of Scotland, was appointed Monday to head London’s Victoria & Albert – a museum with flagging admissions, a stalled £80 million redesign, and an obvious need for artistic leadership. “His next task is to polish this Victorian jewel and make it appeal to the modern eye. A museum cannot ossify and be left to decay. It has to reinvent itself.” The Herald (Glasgow) 2/07/01
• END OF THE BOOM? The Australian art market experienced an unprecedented boom in 1999, with paintings, prints, and drawings selling for more than $90 million. But as a slowdown is already being felt in the economy this year, perhaps the swell has passed? “The big question is what will happen to the Australian economy, and how the art market will stand up to a general downturn.” The Age (Melbourne) 2/07/01
• WHAT LIES BENEATH: A bomb in 1998 at a Sri Lankan Lankan temple called the Temple of the Tooth unexpectedly uncovered some priceless murals which scholars say change the understanding of Sri Lankan art. “The Temple of the Tooth is the final resting place of the Buddha’s tooth, which was first brought to Ceylon in the fourth century AD.” BBC 02/07/01
• MORE THAN POSIES FOR THE PROM: The annual orchid festival starts Saturday at Kew Gardens in London, with very tight security. Some of the blooms are worth thousands; to some people, worth even more. An orchid hunter who had been kidnapped for nine months by South American guerrillas insists, “I thought we were going to die but it was worth it.” National Post (Canada) 02/07/01

Tuesday February 6

• INVITATION TO FRAUD: A series of 29 paintings attributed to Georgia O’Keeffe that were shown last year to be fake after being acquired by the Kemper Museum, have an odd and tangled history. Moreover, they reflect some of the inherent flaws in the art market where provenance is not always what it purports to be. The Kansas City Star puts together a 13-part investigation of the O’Keeffe fiasco and looks at larger artworld problems that allowed it to happen. Kansas City Star 02/04/01
• UPPING THE ODDS OF SURVIVAL: Battered by the financial markets and dwindling online art sales, companies are banding together to stay afloat. Online fine-art retailer NextMonet.com announced its merger with competitor Visualize, an online seller of limited edition art prints. The new company will be based in San Francisco. CNET 2/05/01
• THE ARTIST AS ASPARAGUS: The French painter Edouard Manet was, at heart, a populist, using his talent to turn common aspects of life into profound allegories. The curator of a new Manet exhibit in Baltimore thinks that the work that best demonstrates this technique is “Bunch of Asparagus.” NPR’s Morning Edition 02/05/01 (RealAudio file)

Monday February 5

• LOOTERS RUIN AFGHANI ART: International concern is growing for the safety of artwork in Afghanistan. “The frescoes behind the Great Buddha at Bamiyan are being hacked from the walls by locals living near the site. Although it is doubtful whether any reputable Western dealer would risk purchasing such well recorded frescoes, these unique paintings have been irretrievably damaged. They now risk disappearing forever into the hands of individuals who have few scruples about owning such artefacts.” The Art Newspaper 02/02/01
• BASQUE BOOST: The Bilbao Guggenheim has transformed Bilbao since it opened three years ago. The museum has had 3,625,000 visitors to the museum since October 1997, while 5,000 jobs were created and $600 million’s worth of economic activity was generated.” The Art Newspaper 02/02/01
• TO PAINT YOU IS TO LIKE YOU? Is it true that to paint a woman you have to like her? But “for millennia, men have grown used to working for other men for whom they have scant affection. Their behavior is governed by a common understanding that they have to get along for the purpose in hand. A man can paint another man in a state of emotional indifference. However, most male artists would find it difficult to paint women in this unmoved state.” The Age (Melbourne) 02/05/01
• ONLINE ART SALES: Cyber art sales in the UK seem to be going well, even as prominent online art sales ventures such as NY-based E-artgroup fold owing creditors money. “A new breed of cyberspace art dealers is fuelling a huge upturn in sales of contemporary work, slashing the cost of famous artists’ products and earning attention from millions of people who would never have ventured into a gallery. One gallery, Eyestorm, has sold almost its entire collection of 500 prints of Damien Hirst’s Valium at £1,700 a piece, little more than a month after they went on sale, while rival site Britart.com took 100 orders for prints by his contemporary Gary Hume the first day they went on sale.” The Scotsman 02/04/01
• COLLUSION QUESTIONS: As lawsuits against auction houses Sotheby’s and Christie’s are settled and “lawyers begin winding down their work, questions remain, particularly in the criminal investigation, about the collusion between Sotheby’s and its competitor, Christie’s.” The New York Times 02/05/01 (one-time registration required for access)
• CORCORAN EXPANSION: Two America Online execs give $30 million for the Corocoran Gallery’s new Frank Gehry extension. The New York Times 02/05/01 (one-time registration required for access)
• SPENDING THAT MERGER MONEY: Two America Online executives have pledged $30 million to the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., a record donation for the 132-year-old museum. The money virtually assures construction of the Corcoran’s new Frank Gehry-designed addition, expected to cost $120 million. Washington Post 02/05/01
• RESURRECTING A FORGOTTEN MUSEUM: Albert C. Barnes was the collector responsible for creating a gallery of impressionist art in suburban Philadelphia that has gained international fame. But Barnes was equally proud of his “second collection,” an impressive accumulation of antique furnishings and artwork from all around rural Pennsylvania, housed in a long-forgotten farmhouse called Ker-Feal. Philadelphia Inquirer 02/02/01

Sunday February 4

• VIVA KITSCH: “Today, many of those who label anything they don’t like as kitsch don’t understand what the term means, which leads to problems, especially since so much of the best art of our time takes kitsch or the products of popular culture as its starting point.” San Francisco Chronicle 02/04/01
• GOYA REGROUPED: Goya made close to 600 drawings. “This month, London’s Hayward Gallery will exhibit nearly 120 of these drawings, more than one fifth of this large but little-known part of the artist’s production. Astonishingly, this will be the first time that so many have been seen together since Goya’s death in 1828.” The Telegraph (London) 02/03/01
• HATING THE TATE: “Oh dear. The first exhibition at Tate Modern is a disaster. But in keeping with the gallery’s innovative display policies, it is, at least, a new kind of disaster, a progressive disaster.” Sunday Times (London) 02/04/01

Friday February 2

• WARNING SIGNS: “Art experts at auction powerhouse Christies failed to spot two warning signs that a 15th century painting might have been stolen from a famous Dutch art dealer by Nazi air minister Herman Goering, according to the Art Loss Register.” Iwon Money (Reuters) 02/01/01
• CRACKING DOWN ON SMUGGLING: The U.S. is the latest in a long line of countries to agree to restrictions on imports of certain Italian archeological artifacts. It seems that the U.S. has become the world’s leading market for stolen Italian archeological material, which is often laundered first in Switzerland. U.S. Customs officials will be adopting tough new regulations for importers in an effort to stem the tide. The Art Newspaper 02/02/01
• THE GREAT LABEL DEBATE: “Do you arrive at a ballet, ready to be lectured on the ideas behind the choreographer’s working methods? With the exception of TS Eliot, has any poet ever published notes to accompany and explain their verses? So why do the visual arts so often insist on these Coles Notes to steer your path through their creations, indeed to explicate them at all? And does it matter if they do?” The Independent (London) 02/02/01
• CREATING ART UNDER FIRE: Hot on the heels of two 1998 exhibitions that aimed to break down the cultural wall between China and the West comes a new exhibit that examines the progression of Chinese painting in the last century. The paintings on display, and the biographical sketches of their creators, offer a rare glimpse of the experiences of artists attempting to navigate an era of seemingly endless turmoil. New York Times 02/02/01 (one-time registration required for access)
• THE HOLY GRAIL OF HARPSICHORDS: In 1774, the Russian empress Catherine the Great commissioned a harpsichord from renowned British architect Robert Adam. The resulting instrument was a work of visual as well as musical art, like nothing designed before or since, but no one has seen it for over a century. The famous instrument has taken on mythical proportions over the years, and its legend has sparked considerable interest in other unusual harpsichords of the period, one of which goes on auction this week. New York Times 02/02/01 (one-time registration required for access)
• DON’T TRY THIS AT THE MET: Two Philadelphia curators have created an exhibit that they hope won’t last long. “Steal This Art” asks the visitor to, well, do just that. Patrons who see a piece they’d like to own are permitted to make off with it (as covertly as possible), on condition that they later send a postcard “confession” to the gallery. Baltimore Sun (AP) 02/01/01

Thursday February 1

• FAKIN’ IT: A controversial new book charges that many of the most treasured items in the collections of the world’s museums are forgeries. The author, an employee of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, claims that museums are co-conspirators in “the forgery culture,” and are willing to allow fakes to hang on their walls in order to save themselves, and their rich benefactors, public humiliation. New York Post, 02/01/01
• HOT FOR HAVANA: Americans flooded Cuba for the recent Havana Bienal. “There was the sense that the Bienal, which featured mostly installations by artists from more than 90 countries, wasn’t what the Americans had come to see. They wanted Cuban art, which has been enjoying an international vogue lately. The real action was not in the exhibition spaces, but rather in the studios. American businessmen may fret about being excluded from the bandwagon, but art collectors have no such problem. In Havana, an American can pay for a $5,000 drawing with the wad of bills in his sock, roll it up, and carry it home. It’s perfectly legal-art is exempt from the U.S. embargo.” ArtNews 02/01
• ON THE RISE: Photography may finally be getting the respect it deserves. After decades of playing second fiddle to the more “traditional” fine arts, photographers are commanding top dollar for their work, and collections of photo art are selling like hotcakes as the medium continues to evolve. Village Voice, 01/30/01
• TELL US ABOUT OURSELVES: An Australian ad agency is launching a $1 million campaign to attract visitors to Sydney’s new National Museum of Australia, set to open in March. Television and print ads will “show Australians that they really don’t know a lot about themselves.” Sydney Morning Herald 02/01/01
• TOP-TEN LIST: A look at 10 of the best paintings up for sale in next month’s London auctions. “It appears that last year’s flight to quality – the trend where a few top paintings sell for record sums while many others fail to find a buyer at all – is set to continue.” Forbes 01/31/01

Wednesday January 31

• INNOCENCE ABROAD: A wave of lawsuits followed last year’s US government investigations of price fixing by Christie’s and Sotheby’s. The auction houses made a costly settlement, but an American judge has now dismissed three suits dealing with cases outside the country. So are the auctioneers innocent abroad? Not really. The judge ruled that the overcharges occurred outside the US and had no substantial effect on the US; therefore, the court had no jurisdiction. BBC 01/30/01
• TAKE A WEB OUT OF CRIME: At least two of 15 Greek stone heads stolen from University of Pennsylvania storerooms have been returned, thanks to the Internet. The sculptures, excavated at the Extramural Sanctuary of Demeter in Cyrene 20-30 years ago, were stolen from storerooms sometime in the past year. A website was established describing the figures, and two of them were recovered within a couple days. Archaeology 01/30/01
• SPORTING CHANCES: One of the Royal Ontario Museum’s prize pieces of art is a small 3450-year-old statuette known as Our Lady of the Sports. The ivory and gold figurine, in the collection for seventy years, was believed to be Minoan, from about 1450 BC. Now, several archaeologists claim it’s a forgery. Museum officials deflect the claims: “If she’s a genuine artifact, she’s one of the great artifacts in North America, and even if she isn’t, she’s still very interesting.” Ottawa Citizen (CP) 01/31/01
• CHARTING THE MENIL: Nearly three years after the death of the Menil collection’s controversial founder, the museum is still trying to find its artistic compass. “To me the Menil is the Garbo of museums in its elegance and allure, and its seeming desire to be left alone.” The New York Times 01/31/01 (one-time registration required for access)
• RACING TO FAME AND GLORY: It was never much of a space. But “for a crucial decade between 1988 and 1998, City Racing was one of the main centres of the London art scene. It provided vital early exposure to some of contemporary art’s leading names, and anyone who was anyone in Nineties British art would attend its famously packed Sunday evening exhibition openings.” London Evening Standard 01/31/01

Tuesday January 30

• $48 MILLION LATER, A ‘NEW’ GUIMET: Paris’ Musée Guimet extraordinary collection of Asian art has long been loved, but its building was a dark ramshackle affair. Now, after $48 million and a five-year makeover, the physical Guimet seems to have caught up with the extraordinary artistic one. The New York Times 01/30/01 (one-time registration required for access)

Monday January 29

• THE DAMN COWS ARE BACK – AND THEY’RE SUING TOO: The fibreglass art cows are coming next to London – 500 of them. The animals-on-parade shtick is turning up in cities everywhere. But now the Swiss that started it all are suing the Americans who ran with the idea and there are countersuits and… The Independent (London) 01/29/01
• BUYING CUBAN: Cuban art is hot hot hot right now. “But has that interest been sparked by the quality of the art and the artists or by Cuba’s forbidden allure, something given greater emphasis in this country by the island’s status as a renegade outlaw, off-limits to U.S. citizens without special permission?” Miami Herald 01/18/01

Sunday January 28

• DOING THE RIGHT THING (OR TRYING TO): The plundering of Jewish art collections by the Nazis and the subsequent redistribution of great works of art is now a matter of indisputable public record, and museums around the world have been scrambling to identify works in their collections that they may not have a right to possess. But it is an arduous process, and fine moral distinctions come into play. Chicago Tribune, 01/28/01
• RECREATING A SOUL: Washington’s National Gallery takes on a monumental task in its new show highlighting the legacy of the whirling dervish that was Alfred Stieglitz. The sometime-artist, sometime-curator, and full-time agitator put together some of the most forward-thinking and artistically significant galleries of the century during his career. Washington Post, 01/28/01
• ART AND THE BARRIO: Carmen Lomas Garza is an artist whose work represents not only her own perspective on the world, but that of an entire culture. One of the pioneers of the Latino-American art world, Garza has made her work as much about civil rights as it is about the daily struggles of life in the notorious Texas slums known as “the barrio.” San Jose Mercury News, 01/28/01
• MAJOR COLLABORATION: The Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and the Guggenheim Foundation have announced a collaboration that seems to go beyond what museums have done so far. The accord would involve exchanges of exhibitions, curators and know-how. The Art Newspaper 01/26/01
  • WORLD DOMINATION? “The response of the guardians of the American museum world is to cry “McGuggenheim!”, and claim that Thomas Krens, the management-trained director of the New York Guggenheim, is rolling out the brand. The tie-up with the Hermitage and Kunsthistorisches are just part of a wider strategy for what looks increasingly like a bid by Krens for world domination.” The Guardian 01/27/01
• FUROR OVER FREE MUSEUMS: So British museums are to be free again? “In the 1980s, when museum charges were encouraged by the government of the day as part of a market-driven economy, museums and their collections were regarded as commodities. And the result? Those institutions that went down the charging route saw their visitor numbers plummet on average by a third. This approach failed to take account of the unique importance of museums: they are a crucial part of the fabric of the individual and of society, and everyone should have free access to them.” The Guardian (London) 01/27/01
• DESIGN ARMY: “Fabrica is an offshoot of the Italian clothing giant Benetton, as in United Colors of. Fabrica calls itself a communication research centre, but the term does little to contain the way in which it pulls in umpteen different directions at once. It could as readily style itself the arts and visual design arm of a company that has always made an effort to be seen as more than just the world’s largest consumer of wool.” The Telegraph (London) 01/27/01
• DOME DISPERSAL: Major art from London’s failed Millennium Dome is being dispersed. “Sadly, the story of how the New Millennium Experience Company (NMEC) dealt with art reflects the general ineptitude of its management. Although seven important sculptures were commissioned for the area between the Dome and the Thames, these were crassly displayed and a promised grant from the Henry Moore Foundation was needlessly lost.” The Art Newspaper 01/26/01

Friday January 26

• TOO FAMOUS FOR ITS OWN (AND OTHERS) GOOD: The “Mona Lisa” is being moved to a room of its own at the Louvre due to the mobs that crowd its current spot, which shows the painting in context among other works of the Italian High Renaissance. The Louvre has had to admit that there are limits to this approach and to place bullet-proof glass over the painting; and now it has ruefully accepted another failure that comes from celebrity, and it is removing the work to a raucous room of its own.” The Independent (London) 1/26/01
• MIES IN VOGUE: For the first time ever, the Whitney Museum and Museum of Modern Art in New York are collaborating on complementary exhibitions examining the work of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. “Mies in Berlin” at MOMA will highlight his early career; “Mies in America” will tackle his last three decades in the U.S. “A show of this caliber is necessary now because of a heightened interest not only in Mies but also in modernism.” New York Times 1/26/01 (one-time registration required for access)
• DOUBLE TROUBLE: London’s Royal Academy is going to double in size, taking over an adjacent building. But a plan to move the Academy’s students to new quarters is being panned by the students. Why do the artists like their present ramshackle digs, through which many famous artists have passed? “They boast the most perfect light in which to work.” The Times (London) 01/26/01
• BETTING ON REMBRANDT: In December a Rembrandt sold for a record $28 million. So will the prime Rembrandt portrait Steve Wynn is selling at Christie’s bring that much? “The market may be disappointed. Christie’s describes the painting as ‘exquisite’ and it certainly has an interesting history, which often affects value, having disappeared for 40 years until the early 1990s when it reappeared in a private collection. Yet some art world insiders argue that, unlike the December Rembrandt, this one will not soar in value.” Forbes 01/25/01
• FUNDING FEARS: One of Scotland’s premier arts awards ceremonies took place this week amid widespread fears that the government’s new arts funding scheme might curtail future grants to individual artists. “In recent years, because everything has become based on big hits, big bonanzas and the big image, it has got very worrying and you feel as if the [Scottish Arts Council] committees are withdrawing from artists.” The Herald (Glasgow) 1/26/01
• POLICE: LENNON HAD A “SICK MIND”: In 1970 London police raided a gallery showing art by Beatle John Lennon, confiscating some of the work. Now internal police documents detailing reasons for the raid have been made public . “Many toilet walls depict works of similar merit. It is perhaps charitable to suggest that they are the work of a sick mind. The only danger to a successful prosecution, as I see it, is the argument that they are so pathetic as to be incapable of influencing anyone and therefore unable to deprave or corrupt any person. However I feel the great influence of John Lennon as a Beatle must be borne in mind.” The Guardian (London) 01/26/01

Thursday January 25

• ROYAL ACADEMY TO GROW: London’s Royal Academy of Arts is to “double in size after agreeing to purchase the nearby Museum of Mankind, which it first tried to buy more than 100 years ago.” BBC 01/25/01
• POMPEII IN LONDON: An intact Roman mosaic built in the 2nd century AD has been unearthed in London. “This mosaic is comparable with those at Pompeii and, in Britain, with those in the Roman Palace at Fishbourne. The parallel with Pompeii continues in that, like that city hit by the eruption of Vesuvius, it was destroyed suddenly – in this case, by fire that collapsed the walls, bringing down shelves and cooking pots in the kitchen next door.” London Evening Standard 01/25/01
• BUT DON’T CALL HIM AN ARTIST… “Gary Greff is transforming his hometown of Regent North Dakota into the ‘metal art capital of the world’. His vehicle for the journey is the inchoate ‘Enchanted Highway’: a series of four (out of a planned 10) colossal metal sculptures on the two-lane county road connecting Regent to the interstate 30 miles north. If you want to make Greff cringe, call him an artist. Though he receives grants from both the National Endowment for the Arts and the state arts council, Greff considers himself an entrepreneur.” Salon 01/24/01
• ART AND THE INTERNET: “Today, only 2% of international art sales, valued by the EC at $7 billion, are actually well known – and that’s because those took place in public auctions. With the help of the Internet, that figure is sure to rise, since information can now circulate on a larger scale, allowing the value of art to be redefined and modernized.” BusinessWeek 01/24/01

Wednesday January 24

CANADIAN COMPROMISE:  For years now, Canada’s National Archives has begged and pleaded for a National Gallery displaying portraits of founding fathers and other national heroes. Also for years, Canadian politicians have agitated for a “Canada Gallery” to house historical documents and other artifacts. This week, a deal was struck to create a new nationalistic museum in Ottawa to serve both purposes. The site, ironically enough, will be the former American embassy. Ottawa Citizen 1/24/01

OH, HENRY!  The Henry Luce Foundation is donating $10 million to the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum to “liberate” more than 5,000 artworks that would otherwise have been condemned to the warehouse. The museum closed last year for renovations to its home, the Old Patent Office building, and will reopen in 2004, utilizing the new “visible storage” display concept to exhibit the pieces the Luce grant will fund. Washington Post 1/24/01

PAHK THE CAH IN ALLSTON/BRIGHTON?  Harvard University is considering the building of a new museum of natural history on some of the hundred acres the school owns in the Allston/Brighton neighborhoods of Boston. The new museum, which would probably cost several hundred million dollars over five years, would draw on the collections of five existing Boston museums, and would prominently house the city’s famed 4000-piece “Glass Flowers” collection. Boston Globe 1/24/01

E-ART CONSOLIDATION: As consolidation in the electronic art selling business continues, icollector and eBay form an alliance to sell art on the internet. “The deal comes as eBay revamps its high-end art site Great Collections, which is being transformed into a new art-and-antiques site, eBay Premier (ebaypremier.com).” The Art Newspaper 01/24/01

SOON TO BE FREE? Talks continue between the British government and the country’s museum directors over plans to make admission to all the country’s museums free. “Sources say free admission at all national museums could soon be a reality.” The Independent (London) 1/24/01

PORTRAIT OF THE COMMUTER AS AN ARTWORK:  Billboards have sprung up in Los Angeles declaring stretches of clogged freeways and cookie-cutter retail stores to be works of living art. The oversized labels are part of a promotional campaign by L.A.’s Museum of Contemporary Art. Desperate? Maybe. Lowbrow posing as highbrow? Perhaps. But people are talking about it. L.A. Weekly 1/24/01

RESTORING A MINOR POPE:  One of the side benefits of the economic boom of the last decade has been the newfound ability of cities to reinvest in their own beautification. Pittsburgh’s Frick Park, long in disrepair, is undergoing a massive restoration, with particular attention being given to the unique neoclassic gates designed by the iconoclastic John Russell Pope. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 1/24/01

Tuesday January 23

• FREE FOR ALL: The British government is close to making a deal that will make all British museums free to visitors. London Evening Standard 01/23/01
  • NOT QUITE: Government spokesperson denies free museum plan. The Times (London) 01/23/01
  • PAY JUST A LITTLE? “The Treasury denied that it had made a deal, and the Department of Culture, which would subsidise the institutions, said a £1 entry fee would still be introduced in September. One of the government’s long standing commitments has been to introduce free admission to museums and galleries for everyone.” The Guardian (London) 01/23/01
• THE POPULAR SMITHSONIAN: A record 3.1 million people visited the museums of the Smithsonian last year, a 9 percent increase over 1999, when 28.6 million people visited. The heavy traffic flow reflects a strong tourism economy, not to mention some popular Smithsonian exhibits, such as the Salvador Dali show at the Hirshhorn last spring and the Vikings display at the Museum of Natural History. Washington Post 01/23/01
• ART CRISIS IN AUSTRALIA? Eighteen major Australian visual arts organizations met in Sydney for emergency talks on the state of the visual arts sector in Australia. “Cash-strapped state galleries are being forced to stage more ‘blockbuster’ exhibitions at the expense of Australian content and curatorial quality, while contemporary art spaces were also suffering as a result of static funding. Art colleges were closing courses or cancelling subjects because of funding cuts, which in turn affected the number of teaching jobs available for artists.” The Age (Melbourne) 01/23/01
• BUILDING CHARM: A new Renzo Piano building opens in Sydney. “Architecture is a whatever-it-takes profession. Few practitioners are guiltless in the blatant charm department. But Piano, for all his skill there, is hardly your standard developer’s architect, being strongly ideas-driven, deeply committed to the integrity of the whole and notoriously particular about detail.” Sydney Morning Herald 01/23/01

Monday January 22

• PRESIDENT STEALS ART COLLECTION: The art collection (worth several million dollars) collected by Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos and left at the presidential palace in Manila has gone missing after President Estrada was hounded out of the palace by crowds insisting he give way for a successor. The Times (London) 01/22/01
• LEARNING FROM STAR BUILDINGS: Universities are commissioning big-name architects to design signature buildings for their campuses. But “although many of the new buildings have been acclaimed on aesthetic grounds, some educators question these latest signature buildings. The structures are expensive both to build and to maintain, and administrators are unprepared for the task of guiding, challenging, and controlling star architects.” Chronicle of Higher Education 01/22/01
• THE ARCHITECT WITHIN: Architect Daniel Libeskind’s “early drawings are clues to his highly personal approach to architecture. Difficult to interpret at first, second and third attempts, they represent a search for that which ultimately cannot be spoken about, cannot be described. This is neither as odd nor as negative as it might sound; rather it relates to the prophetic strain of Jewish mysticism that informs Libeskind’s work.” The Guardian (London) 01/22/01
• ART WINDFALL: The museums of France are about to get a trove of paintings given by a collector. “The Musée d’Orsay, the Musée Granet in Aix-en-Provence and other museums will share the 74 paintings, 27 graphic works, five sculptures and three artists’ books executed at the end of the nineteenth century and in the twentieth century.” The Art Newspaper 01/22/01
• THE MEANING OF MODERN ART: “The idea of a discernible master-current in the art of the modern era is now much ridiculed in certain academic and museum circles, and the campaign to discredit it is one in which MOMA in this country and the new Tate Modern in Britain have taken the lead. And there are, to be sure, many reasons to reject the idea. It undoubtedly smacks of elitism, and certainly doesn’t conform to the strictures of political correctness. Aesthetic judgments about art are definitely not an equal-opportunity enterprise. And the very thought of a master-current inevitably suggests that many widely admired works of art would have to be considered—well, minor” New Criterion 01/01

Sunday January 21

• LOUVRE EVACUATED: The Louvre Museum was evacuated Sunday after a bomb threat. “Some 3,000 to 4,000 visitors were forced to leave the famed art museum in central Paris following a suspicious telephone call at about 10:15 a.m.” New Jersey Online (AP) 01/21/01
• TO CATCH A THIEF: The Italian caribinieri has commissioned forgeries of 10 important works stolen from Italian churches, museums and private collections over the past three decades. They will be put on display in hopes that someone will recognize them and come forward with information on their whereabouts. The Independent (London) 01/21/01
• CAUTIONARY FOR COLLECTORS: Gustav Rau, a 78-year-old German citizen, spent more than 40 years building his collection of almost 800 masterpieces, including paintings by Degas, Munch, Renoir and Fra Angelico, worth about £300 million. He set up three charitable foundations in Zurich and Berne, which were allowed to look after the paintings and organise occasional money-spinning exhibitions, the proceeds of which went to the developing world. But Rau decided three years ago to change charities, so the foundations sued to declare him incompetent. Not content with that, Dr Rau’s former friends set about proving that the art collector had gone mad. The Telegraph (London) 01/21/01
• A NEW FOREST OF TOWERS: In Chicago a new boom in modernist skyscraper office buildings. But it’s modernism with a twist. Chicago Tribune 01/21/01
• CLIP AND SAVE: Sotheby’s argues in court that its proposal to pay $100 million of its $512 million settlement in its collusion case with coupons for further purchases will not shortchange customers. “Sotheby’s argued that customers who sued the auction houses for overcharges from antitrust violations would benefit more from a settlement with coupons, which could have a higher aggregate value than an all-cash payment, than they would in a settlement without the coupons.” New York Times 01/21/01 (one-time registration required for access)
• FRENCH AUCTION REFORM: France struggles to reinvent its auction laws in an attempt to revive the country’s place in the international art sales world. The government proposes new laws governing auctions that should open up the business. Critics say the proposals don’t go far enough. International Herald Tribune 01/21/01
• GREEK ART RETURNED: “Nearly 300 ancient objects stolen from a Greek museum a decade ago have been returned to Greek officials, the FBI said. The objects, valued at more than $2 million, were stolen in April 1990 from the Archaeology Museum in Corinth, 50 miles southwest of Athens.” CNN.com 01/21/01
• A NEW ZEITGEIST: Art buyers for the British government have traditionally bought classic art – Turners, Constables and the like – to decorate the offices of government ministries. But the Labour party has been directing the buying of contemporary art, including that by the controversial YBAs, and the Royal opposition is furious. The Independent (London) 01/21/01

Friday January 19

• FORMER PRES GOES NON-PROFIT: The former Sotheby’s president who resigned amidst collusion investigations of the company, has forfeited her stock options. “At the time she resigned, Ms. Brooks volunteered to give back all but a few of her options. The company then asked for the return of all the options as partial payment for damages stemming from her role in a price-fixing scheme that has cost the auction house tens of millions of dollars in fines and lawsuit settlements. It also ensures that she will not profit from any increase in Sotheby’s stock.” New York Times 01/19/01 (one-time registration required for access)
• WARTIME COMPENSATION: “A family that fled from Nazi Germany during the Second World War is to receive £125,000 in compensation from the Government because a painting they sold for food ended up in the Tate gallery.” The Independent (London) 01/19/01
• MUSEUM BAIL-OUT: A British government rescue of the beleaguered Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds “could end up costing the taxpayer £25 million. The museum, set up in 1996 to house 40,000 military artefacts, faced going into receivership two years ago after attracting less than half its target number of visitors.” BBC 01/19/01
• SCOTLAND LIKES ART: Scotland’s National Galleries logged in a record one million visitors last year, 16 percent more than in 199 and 25 percent more than 1998. “2000 was a unique year for the Galleries – exactly 150 years after our foundation stone was laid in August, 1850. This fact definitely inspired us, and our enthusiasm must have been infectious.” Glasgow Herald 01/19/01
• DANGEROUS ROCKS: London’s Museum of Natural History has plead guilty to putting radioactive rocks on display that were emitting radiation above permitted levels. London Evening Standard 01/18/01

Thursday January 18

• NEW CALDER MUSEUM? The Philadelphia Museum of Art is about to announce it will build a new museum dedicated to sculptor Alezander Calder. The museum is also said to have picked a site and is close to selecting prizewinning Japanese architect Tadao Ando to design the building. Philadelphia Inquirer 01/18/01
• LEAVING EUROPE BEHIND? A new tax on the sale of art in Europe has art dealers worried.”If extra taxes make the trade in art more expensive in Europe, then that trade will leave. The business will migrate to the U.S., Switzerland, Japan and other countries exempt from the tax.” Forbes 01/18/01
• ART AND MOVIES: London’s artists of the Damien Hirst/Tracey Emin genre are so famous at home that they compete with movie stars for space in the tabloid press. Now they’ll be movie stars, as plans are revealed for a new film telling of their rise to prominence. The Scotsman 01/18/01
• WE’RE AWARE WE’RE HERE: The Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art has hired giant ad agency TWBA\Chiat\Day, the firm responsible for Absolut Vodka’s art-friendly ads, the Energizer Bunny, Apple’s “Think Different” campaign and “Yo Quiero Taco Bell” to create an “awareness campaign” for the museum. “Over the next month or so, and continuing through June, MOCA’s 2001 Brand Awareness Campaign will position 60 site-specific labels as billboards throughout the city. LA Weekly 01/18/01

Wednesday January 17

• STOLEN ART INITIATIVE: American museums announced a plan to identify art that might may have been stolen by the Nazis in WWII. “Museums will be asked to disclose on the Internet the identity and chain of ownership of all works in their collections that changed hands during the Nazi years (1932-1945) and could have been in Europe during that period. This new agreement is the latest step in a worldwide effort to identify and recover art confiscated by the Nazis.” Washington Post 01/17/01
• THE CASE FOR NOT RETURNING THE ELGIN MARBLES: If art should be in the places where it can have the most impact and influence, isn’t London the place? From Constable to Henry Moore and beyond, the sculptures from the Parthenon have had a major influence on British art. New Statesman 01/15/01
• STONED AND DECEIVED: An investigation into the fiasco surrounding the British Museum’s use of the wrong kind of stone in its £100 million Great Court has found that the museum was indeed deceived by the masonry company that supplied the stone. However, the inquiry also determined that the museum should have acted more quickly to verify and then rectify the problem. The Times (London) 1/17/01
  • COURSE OF ACTION: Now that the report is out, what should be done next? “Camden councillors have been taking expert legal advice on what action they should take and one option being considered is that the museum should be prosecuted for breaching planning laws.” London Evening Standard 01/17/01
• THE POLITICS OF BIENNALE: For the first time Canada’s representative at the Vennice Biennale will be from a gallery from Manitoba. But artists there are not rejoicing – the gallery has chosen artists from Alberta. And can it put together the money to make the biennale project work? The Globe & Mail (Canada) 01/17/01

Tuesday January 16

• SUPER MOVEMENT: ” ‘Superflat’ is the best name for an art movement since – well, since Pop, from which it descends. Name-wise Superflat has it all over mid-1980s Neo-Geo, its most recent conceptual cousin. The name is market-savvy. It has retro-snap. It’s wry. It takes the hoary critical arguments of the pre-Postminimal 1970s, which insisted on flatness as essential to the truth of painting, and gives them a shove: Oh, yeah? Superflat is more true. It’s supertrue. And it’s got something for everyone. Painting. Sculpture. Photography. Fashion. Porcelain sex dolls.” Los Angeles Times 01/16/01
• THE GOOG IN AUSTRIA: The Guggenheim has announced a new collaboration with Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum, which builds on the New York museum’s already evolving partnership with the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. The new three-way alliance will allow for shared exhibitions, co-curating, and shared resources. “You get much more marketing and picture power if you pool your resources.” New York Times 1/16/01 (one-time registration required for access)

Monday January 15

• TURBULENCE AHEAD: January is usually a quiet month in the art-sales world, when auction houses recover from the holiday boom, but not so this year when the turbulent events of last year show no sign of letting up. The price-fixing scandal is still being resolved, internet sales continue to perform poorly, and Sotheby’s has announced plans to layoff 8% of its international workforce over the next few months. “Only one thing is certain: 2001 will not be dull.” The Telegraph (London) 1/15/01
• FANS WILL BE FANS: It’s a well-known fact that groupies will spend top dollar for a memento of an idol’s greatness – think Madonna’s bustier, Michael Jordan’s jersey, etc. But now the trend has hit the contemporary-art world, with the first ever auction of “Britart memorabilia” being held in London this week. Nicholas Serota’s Tate Modern hard-hat, Michael Craig-Martin’s painting trays (“fresh from the studio”) and Anthony Gormley’s overalls (“complete with ball-bearings in pockets”) are all on the block.” The Times (London) 1/15/01
• INTERNET CZECH-UP: Following a government inquiry into the location and ownership of art and real estate since World War II, the Czech Cultural Ministry has launched a special Internet site (www.restitution-art.cz) to help locate art stolen by the Nazis. The committee was the first of its kind to be organized in a formerly communist country. Ha’aretz (Israel) 1/15/01
• IDENTITY ISSUES: Given the fact that national identity trumps religious affiliation for many contemporary Jewish artists identifying themselves in today’s art world, a proposed Jewish Museum of Art in London raises interesting questions about the dedication of galleries and museums to select groups. “Why then should art by Jews be set apart? I do not know – but in my bones I feel that it should, at least until it is completely absorbed into the mainstream.” London Evening Standard 1/15/01
• A WELL-KEPT SECRET: With a $17 million building designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando, and the distinction of being St. Louis’ first major new art institution since 1904, why does no one know about the newly built Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts? “In defying current museum trends to reach out to increasing numbers of visitors, the new foundation is harking back to the early part of the 20^th century when wealthy private collectors created intimate, personal museums like the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and the Barnes Foundation.” New York Times 1/15/01 (one-time registration required for access)
• TAKEOVER DENIED: Reports that Glasgow’s museums are to be nationalized were denied by the city and the Scottish executive. “According to reports in a Sunday newspaper, the executive was preparing to foot the £17m annual bill for Glasgow’s civic arts collection, which is considered to be one of the finest in the world.” Glasgow Herald 01/15/01

Sunday January 14

• SHANGHAI SURPRISE: “The Shanghai Biennale 2000 – the third by the Shanghai Art Museum – leaves in its aftermath hope for a steady, if slow development of the city’s art scene. By international standards, the Biennale was far from cutting-edge, but in a country where contemporary art continuously struggles against an indifferent public and a restrictive government, the exhibition was an important marker – the most open state organized art event since the ‘China Avant-Garde’ exhibitions in Beijing in 1989.” International Herald Tribune 01/13/01
• REASON TO COMPLAIN: Bilbao’s ugly stains, Norman Foster’s wobbly bridge; architects have recently been beaten up on for failures in their buildings. “When buildings leak or rust, it offers people who don’t like contemporary architecture the same kind of weapon presented by the charges of plagiarism levelled at the Turner Prize short list last year. It’s taken as positive proof that not only are contemporary architects incapable of designing buildings that are anything but a blot on the landscape, but they are conmen who can’t even keep the rain out.” The Observer (London) 01/14/01
• THE NEW ARCHITECTURE: “Architects were villains in the 1980s: often they are heroes now. But it’s not so much a style thing as the fact that architects are increasingly giving the public what it wants in another sense. It’s to do with making nice places to hang out in. This is the age of the flâneur, that evocative and untranslatable French word roughly meaning someone who saunters about aimlessly but agreeably. Flâneurs need places to promenade. This is what architects like to provide. And, unusually, some of them have been given the money to do it.” The Sunday Times (London) 01/14/01
• THE FRENCH AUCTION THIRD WORLD: France’s restrictive nationalistic hold on its art auction market cost it prominence internationally. “The price France paid was that the brightest of its citizens who dreamed of living in the world of art and auctions went over to the English auction houses. Ironically, their contribution was an important factor in the irresistible ascent of Sotheby’s and Christie’s.” International Herald Tribune 01/13/01
• GRAVES ON TARGET: “In the mid-1980s, after more than 20 years as an acclaimed architect, Michael Graves began designing household objects. In 1997, he was commissioned by the U.S. discount chain Target to create hundreds of products, this time aimed at the mass market. Sold through Target’s more than 800 stores, these appliances and gadgets have brought Graves a greater level of fame among the public than perhaps any architect in history. Predictably, some of his peers play the girl’s school headmaster and sneer, pronouncing him a prostitute. The more generous ones admit they are simply jealous of his success.” The Globe & Mail 01/13/01
• DECORATING BUILDINGS: In architecture “no aesthetic statement resonated more forcefully across the 20th century than Adolf Loos’s declaration in 1908 that ‘ornament is crime’, echoed a few years later by Mies van der Rohe’s ‘less is more’.” But now some small steps toward decoration? The Telegraph (London) 01/13/01

Friday January 12

• HERMITAGE FIRE: New Year’s Eve fireworks accidently hit scaffolding atop the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg and started a fire. The scaffolding encased the Chariot of Glory on top of the Arch of the General Staff Building. “The wood and metal sheeting which enclosed it intensified the blaze inside, destroying most of the statue of Gloria, which stands on a chariot pulled by six horses.” The Art Newspaper 01/12/01
• ANCIENT RING: A mysterious ring of wood has emerged from under the sands on a beach in Norfolk in the UK. “The structure was discovered just 100 metres from the site where the famous Bronze Age monument known as Seahenge was uncovered more than two years ago.” BBC 01/12/01
• VATICAN ONLINE: The Vatican Library, founded in 1451 and the “world’s oldest library,” has only been accessible to church officials and scholars. But now the Vatican has made a deal with an internet company in California to sell “reproductions of manuscripts, coins, ancient maps, timepieces, scientific instruments, and art from its vast collection.” Business 2.0 01/11/01

Thursday January 11

• MOST CONTROVERSIAL: Since Brian Kennedy became director of the National Gallery of Australia in 1997, he has been a lightning rod of controversy. A “staff shake-up, resignations, criticism over the acquisition of a David Hockney painting for the equivalent of more than £2 million, allegations about the gallery’s unhealthy air-conditioning system (subsequently unsupported) and cancellation of the controversial ‘Sensation’ show” have helped make him (and his museum) the most controversial arts organization in Australia. Irish Times 01/11/01
• POST-POST-NEO-SOMETHING OR OTHER: How to sort out the neos from the posts and post-posts in the second half of the 20th Century? New York Observer 01/10/01

Wednesday January 10

• FEWER PEOPLE ARE ACTUALLY LOOKING: Enormous crowds at Tate Modern and the Royal Academy’s “Apocalypse” show have supposedly signaled a new level of public interest in art – but have they? London attendance records actually show numbers are down for many other solid, well-curated exhibits. “Could the over-promotion of selective versions of contemporary art be channelling the interest people have for it in ways from which it will never escape, and creating a new category of sold experience where only quality should count?” The Independent 1/09/01
• REBUILDING BEIRUT: Now that Beirut is no longer a war zone, Lebanese officials and architects are considering how to best rebuild the 5,000-year-old city. “Should Beirut replace its old fabric with a new one? Should it conserve some old elements? And if so, which ones? Should rebuilding be true to the original, or would such “non-transformation” of buildings risk a transformation of social relationships?” Encompassing 19.4 million square feet of reclaimed land, it’s one of the largest urban development projects in history. Architecture Week 12/20/00

Tuesday January 9

• RING AROUND THE BILBAO: Only three years after it opened, the Bilbao Guggenheim has discoloring brown stains on its shiny titanium exterior. Says architect Frank Gehry: “If they’d cleaned the building properly when construction was completed, the stains would not be there. It’s normal: you finish a building and you clean it. But they didn’t. It makes me angry because everyone points at the architect.” The New York Times 01/09/01 (one-time registration required for access)
• ENDANGERED PAINTINGS: On the Caribbean island of St. Cristobal, limestone mining threatens thousands of ancient cave paintings left by the inhabitants who lived there when Christopher Columbus landed “Archaeologists believe the oldest drawings are up to 2,000 years old, but no one is certain because you would have to destroy them to carbon-date them. These caves have been compared to the pyramids of Egypt in terms of their importance to Caribbean native culture.” MSNBC (AP) 01/08/01
• ROUGH TIME ONLINE: All in all, it’s been a tough year for online sales of art. Sites have folded, and others are barely hanging on, pressured to turn profits. ” While those observers who are skeptical of the Internet’s potential as a marketplace for high-end art note the financial instability of the past year, optimists point to an increasing number of new collectors who have emerged online.” ArtNews 01/01
• BARBARIANS INSIDE THE GATE: London’s Royal Academy annually hosts the Summer Exhibition, the largest open contemporary art show in the world — where “entries are occasionally criticised as too traditionally good-looking.” But this year pop artist Peter Blake is curating. “He has served notice that the painterly event will be pepped up by the inclusion of works from more controversial artists such as Tracey Emin, notorious for a stained bed, and Damien Hirst, who specialises in pickling animals.” The Times (London) 01/09/01
• LOOSE CHANGE: A Scottish museum attendant managed to smuggle 150 coins out of the museum, “including one worth £100,000, from Perth Museum and Art Gallery, where he had worked for two years. The thefts were discovered when management updated the catalogue of the coin collection.” The Times (London) 01/09/01
• OLYMPIC ART BUST: A number of artists who shipped their work to Sydney for showing during last summer’s Olympic games have yet to get their work or money back, leading some to consider legal action. The Australian 01/09/01
• CONFESSIONS OF AN OUTSIDER ARTIST: “It can take guts to identify yourself openly as an outsider, as for many in the art world such an admission is tantamount to a credibility cop-out. A degree of cynicism is perhaps understandable when cutting-edge art has ‘colonised’ outsider regions repeatedly during the past century. And it’s not unheard of for ostensibly mainstream artists to claim outsider status, further blurring the distinction between ‘outsider’ and ‘insider’.” *spark-online 01/01
• GOYA MOVIE: Director Milos Forman is going to make a movie of Goya’s life. The story will “center on Goya’s life as a painter, a political figure and a lover. But this is more than a bio picture. It’s about a whole era, which includes the Spanish Inquisition.” Variety 01/09/01

Monday January 8

• MORE ARRESTS IN SWEDISH ART ROBBERY: Two more arrests have been made in the case of the stolen Rembrandt and Renoirs. One of the suspects is said to be a lawyer. “He and another lawyer detained earlier are suspected of acting as go-betweens with the thieves in their efforts to obtain a ransom for the pictures.” BBC 01/08/01
• WHERE’S EUROPE’S BEST ARCHITECTURE COMING FROM? “Switzerland has produced several of the world’s most original and respected architects in recent years, including Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron (best known outside their homeland for Tate Modern and the exquisite Dominus Winery in California’s Napa Valley) and Mario Botta, who was, for a brief while, an assistant of the great Swiss architect Le Corbusier.” The Guardian (London) 01/08/01
• PANDERING? “Art museums these days are pandering to the lowest common denominator, confusing popular junk with high art, and failing their mission to set standards and educate the public. Or they’re throwing over outdated and elitist concepts about art, making it fun, bringing more people into museums, and teaching them to see beauty in everyday objects. Either the barbarians are at the gate, or they’re already in, and, hey, they’re not barbarians.” USA Today 01/05/01
• THE NEW MUSEUM: The Guggenheim’s Thomas Krens on criticisms of the museum’s Armani show: “We’ve expanded the concept of what a museum/gallery is. You have to be flexible today. I see a museum as a research and education institution, as well as a theme park – I say theme park not in a pejorative manner. People come here for a visceral experience. I’m involved with objects of material culture – that’s about everything. So then you choose a hierarchy. “We look at the high practitioners in the field of material culture, be it motorbikes, paintings or clothes. Clothes and motorbikes have not got a frame around them but they reflect the aspirations of culture in an age of globalisation.” The Scotsman 01/08/01
• THE ART OF SELLING ART: “Art galleries often appear to be nothing more than underutilized museums, but their real purpose is to sell art. Compared with other retailers, they are spectacularly bad at what they do. Most people don’t go to galleries, and thanks to the snobbery and traditionalism of some dealers, artists cannot effectively connect with the vast American public and its equally vast purchasing power. Art galleries sell art in the way that fancy stores sell luxury goods: they use high prices to suggest scarcity, quality and prestige.” New York Times 01/07/01 (one-time registration required for access)
• SFMOMA’S DIGITAL INITIATIVE: Digital art represents a challenge to museums used to caring for objects they can hold in their hands. “For museums, which are collections of objects, the intangibility of digits raises some interesting questions. How do you register a work when it has no physical presence? How do you preserve an online piece that the artist continues to update?” New York Times 01/08/01 (one-time registration required for access)
• THE BUTCHER, THE PAINTER? Bones believed to be those of the artist Giotto are dued to be buried this week. But some experts contend the bones don’t belong to the artist. One writes to the archbishop of Florence: “I can assure you that those bones have nothing to do with Giotto. If you officiate, you may find yourself blessing the bones of some fat butcher.” The Telegraph (London) 01/06/01

Sunday January 7

• ART ROBBERY CAPTURE: A seventh suspect is captured in Swedish Rembrandt/Renoir theft. “The man was detained on Saturday night and is suspected of being an accessory to blackmail in a scheme to hold the three paintings for ransom.” CNN 01/07/01
• LONDON CALLING: Last year was an architectural feast in London, with an array of important new buildings opening. “This year will be even more packed with new buildings and projects. What has yet to be seen is whether they will match the architectural panache of what we have just seen, and indeed whether the hundreds of millions of pounds involved has been wisely spent.” The Telegraph (London) 01/07/01
• TAKING THE 17th: “The 17th century – either in the form of the high baroque, or the classicism of Carracci and Poussin – is not big box office. The 20th century was in love with the 15th, with Piero della Francesca and Giovanni Bellini. Michelangelo remains the biggest art star of all (except perhaps Van Gogh). The Italian 17th century, in popular appeal, comes nowhere. But this general indifference – delightful to the 17th-century fan – may be in the process of changing.” The Telegraph (London) 01/07/01
• CONCEPTUAL ARTIST: Architect Daniel Libeskind has a number of projects in the proposal or construction stages. “for Libeskind, the point of architecture is not how it looks, but how it feels. He always saw his drawings as a necessary preparation for building, rather than theoretical speculation. The fact that they are not immediately comprehensible as architecture is no drawback for him.” The Observer (London) 01/07/01
• MAGNIFICENT MISTAKES: Is Victorian architecture in again as some suggest? “Any attempt to render Victorian architecture trendy is, of course, doomed to failure. It is both too common and – even when we do absorb it properly – too confusing to most post-modern sensibility, which likes reference, but not too much.” Guess not. The Independent 01/05/01
• SIGN ME UP: Three years ago Mark Murchison worked loading docks in Queens. After he got laid off, he took classes in handling art. Now he’s working as an art handler moving the Museum of Modern Art’s collection. How much to art handlers earn? “Up to $65 an hour at places such as Sotheby’s, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the MOMA. “I had this blue-collar thing happening back then, and now I’m working at one of the beacons of the cultural world.” New York Daily New 01/07/01

Friday January 5

• HISTORY DOESN’T COME IN NEAT PACKAGES: In preparation for its major renovations, the Museum of Modern Art sought to retell the story of modern art. Now the last segment of that retelling opens: “Of the 11 segments that make up this final chapter of MOMA’s retelling of the story of modern art, six are tedious, formally obvious, and didactic to the core. Here, the extraordinary is rendered ordinary, the resistant made palatable; the discordant passes unnoticed. Little vision for the future is evident; next to nothing is said about contemporary art; positions aren’t taken; outlooks are narrow; risk is nonexistent.” Village Voice 01/03/01
• NAZI FEARS: A prominent Gustav Klimt painting has been pulled from a show at Canada’s National Gallery because of concerns it might have been Nazi plunder. “The painting is owned by the Belvedere, a state museum in Vienna, and is part of a current show there called Klimt and Women. The museum decided to rescind its agreement to lend the work after a panel of Austrian art experts advised the government in November to return that and another Klimt to the original owner’s heirs.” Ottawa Citizen 01/05/01
• FASHIONABLE ART: The Guggenheim’s show on Armani fashion is indicative of a shift in perception of fashion as art. The show “is a perfect example of the blend of fashion, art, commerce and academic analysis that marks the current cultural scene. How we dress now is a subject that engages semioticians, social historians, political analysts and gender theorists – ‘fashion civilians’, in the words of Colette’s biographer Judith Thurman – as well as superstar designers, magazine editors, high-spending celebrities, and chic purveyors and curators of front-line style.” London Review of Books 01/14/01
• SUSPECTS IN REMBRANDT THEFT Police have arrested four Swedish men in connection with the December 22 theft of a Rembrandt self-portrait and two Renoir paintings from Stockholm’s National Museum. The artwork, valued at $30 million, is still missing. The Times (London) 01/05/01
• ASWAN DAM DESTROYING ANCIENT TEMPLES? The Secretary General of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities says that “waterlogging” has severely damaged stone foundations of the Temple of Karnak, “which is a stone’s throw from the Nile. Dr Gaballa explained that after the Aswan dam was built (1960-70), the natural drainage of the Nile valley had been blocked and buildings on both banks of the river have been affected.” An investigation, undertaken with the help of the UN, has begun. The Art Newspaper 01/05/01
• THE COMIC EDGE: “While cartoonists hardly need the validation of The New York Times to tell them what they are doing is important, the recent mass media acceptance of graphic novels is undeniably important, for countless reasons. But why are comics receiving this attention now? Anyone involved in comics on any level knows that now is one of the worst times economically for the art form.” *spark online 01/01
• FIGHTING THE HACK TRACK: Some of the superstars of architecture – Rem Koolhaas, Norman Foster, Frank Gehry and Renzo Piano – are currently designing projects in Chicago. But design in the city “has become a two-track building boom – on the one hand, high-quality non-commercial projects by the visiting superstars; on the other hand, low-quality commercial and residential buildings (Nordstrom, One Superior Place and the like) turned out by hacks.” Chicago Tribune 01/05/01
• ART FOR RENT: An Edinburgh gallery has begun letting its customers rent artworks. “People come in, pick a piece, go home and hang it on the wall and if they’re fed up with it they bring it back and change it for another piece.” BBC 01/05/01

Thursday January 4

• ART DOTCOM FALLOUT: A year ago online art selling was seen as the future of art sales. But a number of the online sellers who crowded into cyberspace have failed at the task. Add Artnet to the list. Artnet was “the first website to offer blue-chip works of art for on-line sale. Now, less than two years later, the company is cutting costs and reducing staff. In other words, the company has given up trying to sell paintings on-line, choosing to concentrate on prints and photographs.” The Art Newspaper 01/03/01
  • THE REAL DEAL(ER): Why won’t the internet replace the need for art dealers? “Selling dodgy art is as old as the art business itself. Whether the fakes look as good as the real thing or are merely shoddy knockoffs is beside the point. The point is that buyers will need expert advice now more than ever to guide them through the hazards of the art market.” Forbes 01/03/01
• SPILLOVER POPULARITY? London’s new museums have been such a hit with audiences that elsewhere in England museums with construction projects are busy revising upwards their attendance projections. The Guardian (London) 01/04/01
• HISTORY THROUGH A LENS: In the 1870s photography replaced draftsmen and artists as primary recorders of history; as in a series of photographs taken of Rome at the time that showed what pieces of antiquity interested the Romans. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 01/04/01

Wednesday January 3

• TIME TO TAKE A CHANCE? London has scored great successes with the buildings errected with National Lottery money. So isn’t it time that some bolder chances were taken, some adventurous turns that might result in brilliance? The Times (London) 01/03/01
• THE ART OF DIGITAL: There are those critics (and you know who you are) who believe there is no such thing as digital art. Why? “Digital media are not easily written about as art. It is another leap that has to be taken. Until digital works are seen in an art context they will not be assessed properly – that’s the biggest challenge. And no one knows how [or why] digital technology is art.”  Los Angeles Times, 01/03/2001
• KLIMTS RETURNED: Eight paintings by Gustav Klimt that were stolen by the Nazis and later turned up in an Austrian gallery, have been returned to the family from whom they were stolen and are on display in Canada. The Globe & Mail (Canada) 01/03/01
• MORE PRESSURE ON THE BARNES: The Barnes Collection, near Philadelphia, is in a bind. It’s broke. And its residential neighbors have long been unhappy with the crowds the Barnes generates. Now some neighbors want the Barnes to build a multi-million-dollar road to the museum that would take visitor traffic off local streets. Philadelphia Inquirer 01/03/01

Tuesday January 2

• ART RANSOM: Thieves who stole a Rembrandt and two Renoir paintings from Sweden’s National Museum on December 22 are ransoming the paintings for “several million crowns” “Police have received a letter with photographs of the three art works, which are valued at about $30 million.” The Telegraph (London) 01/01/01
• CYNICAL BLOCKBUSTERS: “The art exhibition has become one of our favourite treats. Orgies of hype and merchandising, blockbuster shows are the cultural equivalent of a royal wedding or the World Cup – spectacles that make us feel part of a community of chat, deciding that yes, we really do all feel that late Monet is as fascinating if not more so than the Monet of the 1870s. Last year hardly a week went by without the opening of some absolutely unmissable show, and this year the procession rolls on, genuflecting before one modern or ancient master after another.” The Guardian (London) 01/01/01
• SO WHAT CONSTITUTES ART? The Los Angeles County Museum’s show on California has been faulted for emphasizing history and pop culture as much as art. “Museums, like other institutions, are trying to make things relevant. The show cuts a broad path through the cultural landscape, touching on everything from surfboards to WWII Japanese internment camps, as well as the varying manifestations of spirituality. “It’s all been a part of the growing democratization of the arts. Today you can say a word like ‘multicultural’ and people recognize it; you don’t have to explain it anymore.” Christian Science Monitor 12/29/00
• A LITTLE SHOW BIZ IN BROOKLYN: The Brooklyn Museum had a reputation for its rich collection and stodgy ways. Then three years ago Arnold Lehman arrived as director and brought some show business to the place (including last year’s “Sensation” show). “Mr. Lehman makes no apologies for his populist approach, saying that if the choice arose, he would have no trouble favoring a broader audience over deeper scholarly research, while bearing in mind that the mission of the museum is always about art.” New York Times 01/01/01 (one-time registration required for access)
• SHANGHAI CENSORSHIP: The Shanghai Biennale, with “67 artists from 15 countries, is China’s bid to join the club of biannual art extravaganzas led by Venice and New York City.” But the censors have made a mess of the program. CNN 01/01/01
• STOLEN PICASSOS: Police recover a fifth stolen Picasso in Turkey. New Jersey Online (AP) 11/14/00