Category: visual

The US Customs Service has started a new unit of six agents to specialize in art seizures. “Art theft seizures demand an ability to recognize valuable art, verify the authenticity of a piece and properly preserve it, and the job requires a masterful grasp of international regulations and the ability to work with people of astounding wealth and expertise.” – Salon

• South Korea wanted to do something big to mark the turn of the millennium. But those plans have been drastically scaled back. “Gone are plans for 12 grand gate structures that were to be built around the nation over the next 120 years, and one of the few remaining projects is hanging by a thread.” – Korea Herald

The sale of the Berggruen Collection to the city of Berlin means “that Berlin will have a Picasso museum that is rivaled only by the Musée Picasso in Paris. Of the 165 works, 85 are Picassos, spanning every period of the artist’s life. The rest include outstanding examples by 20th-century masters like Braque, Giacometti, Matisse and Klee. The new museum will fill a serious gap in Germany, since most early modern art was driven out of the country by Hitler as ‘degenerate’.” – New York Times

A couple of embarrassing art switcheroos have recently been pulled off. “First, a $7 million Monet went missing from the National Museum in Poznan, Poland, and a badly painted copy on cardboard was left in its stead. Then, monks at St Josaphat’s Monastery in Lattingtown, Long Island, found themselves short of two rare 16th- and 17th-century English tapestry chairs – the earlier of which Henry VIII once reputedly sat on. – New Statesman

The British Museum’s new Great Court portico has been getting raves from the critics. Except this one: “It is an inexcusable eyesore. At first glance it is so alien that to mistake it for some form of plastic substitute can be forgiven; at second glance, so clumsily are its blocks cut, so chipped their corners, so fudged and filled the junctions of the blocks and column drums that the material must be stone, the masons’ craft and workmanship unacceptably flawed. The fault is beyond remedy and chucking buckets of slurry at it – which might help in the open air – is not an option.” – London Evening Standard

“The art crowd from New York, L.A., San Francisco, New Orleans, and the rest of the planet, has descended like locusts for the seventh Havana Bienal. Drooling over disintegrating facades and tail-finned vehicular carapaces, they’re oblivious to local anxieties of grinding to an irreplaceable halt. Amid palms, surf, deprivations, and faded billboards in praise of Socialismo, the permanent revolution has become an eternal fiesta. The people party and clean their wounds with antifreeze on this entropic island that seems both more spirited and more hopeless than any Soviet satellite state ever was. You get the feeling that they humor Fidel’s oppressions as if he were their dotty uncle. But in the artworld, a weird delusion of normalcy holds sway.” – Village Voice

What do corporations look to when deciding what art they want to buy to display in their buildings? “All the companies have pressing practical concerns: that the sculpture should not obstruct their buildings and brand names, that is should not impinge on parking space, and that it should be resilient enough to withstand the iconoclastic attentions of the local residents.” – New Statesman

The Mall at the US Capitol is running out of space for historical monuments and markers. So a commission has released a list of possible other places in the capital. “It is considered a blueprint for Washington’s third century, much as the Pierre L’Enfant plan helped dictate the shape of the city at its founding and the McMillan Commission enhanced and enlarged L’Enfant’s work in the 1900s.” – Chicago Sun-Times

It’s been a rough year for the Vancouver Art Gallery. The museum’s director resigned under storms of protest from the city’s artists that he was forced out by a board that had overstepped. Now the city is looking to a new director, plucked from LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art. – The Globe & Mail (Canada)

It’s the rare transportation project that stirs as much controversy as Athens’ new subway. Building was stalled for 35 years due to fears of harming the monuments above ground and the artifacts below. Now more than 10,000 objects have been uncovered during the dig and are on permanent display. “The shotgun marriage between archaeologists and builders has produced a wonderful new vision of how ancient Athenians lived and died.” – New York Times