Category: visual

A “snapshot” exhibition of art from around the year 1900 gives us the good, the bad and the ugly. Was it the beginning of an era? The end? What does it tell us about aesthetic debates then? What does it tell us about today’s? “Much of this exhibition’s ‘new evidence’ turns out to be just bad art. As presented, ‘1900’ is neither ‘twilight or ‘dawn’, but a grey haze that obscures distinguishing marks.” – The Idler

Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts “launched its Online Collections Database yesterday with nearly 15,000 objects from its collection on its Web site, mfa.org. The works vary from ancient Egyptian sculptures to European paintings.” – Boston Globe

America’s museums have entered into an agreement to list all works of art that may have been stolen by the Nazis in World War II. “Under guidelines, expected to be announced next month, museums must disclose on Web sites the provenance for all works acquired after 1933 and created before 1945.” Some critics say the deal doesn’t go far enough. – Boston Herald

A big new installation of Asian art at Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario is a mess. “Intended as a way of displaying the cultures of South Asia, the Ondaatje Gallery instead delivers 2,500 square feet of incoherence. As a work of design, it is almost bad enough to be in the Museum of Civilization in Ottawa. It’s one of those exhibits that somehow manage to detract from the sum of human knowledge; at the end you may feel you know less than you did when you entered.” – National Post (Canada)

Melbourne’s new $290 million museum (the largest museum in the southern hemisphere) has created a landmark building for Australia and has won international acclaim for its design, but its acceptance has come after critics fervently fought the project every step of the way. “The lesson to be learnt here is that you should not allow early criticism to halt the creation of well-planned civic assets.” – The Age (Melbourne)

Digging the new Athens subway proved an opportunity to unearth fascinating layers of history. Now that the subway has opened, some of the finds are now on display, including relics from “a mass grave from the time of the Peloponnesian War, presumed to be full of victims of the plague which struck the Athenians in 430BC, when people crowded into the city from the countryside for protection.” – Financial Times

Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts is undergoing an ambitious expansion. “The most visible symbol of their goal is the $83 million building that opened here in March, covering an entire city block. It has made the institution the country’s 6th largest art museum, a grand leap from its previous place as 30th.” – New York Times

The Korean government proposed levying a tax on art and antiques, but the National Assembly vetoed it. Says a government spokesperson: “The rich have utilized the trading of antiques and paintings to increase their wealth.” – Korea Times

The fashion store Prada has chosen three A-list architects to design its new stores: Rem Koolhaas’s OMA, in Rotterdam, Zurich’s Herzog & de Meuron and Tokyo’s SANAA. Between them, these ‘Pradarchitects’ are designing six buildings that are meant to ‘reinvent the concept of shopping’ Gradually, we are witnessing a merging of theatre, worship, fashion, architecture, design and shopping.” – The Guardian

“Colombian artist Fernando Botero has donated a collection of works of art worth an estimated $250 million to two museums in Colombia, one in the capital Bogotá, the other in Medellin, the artist’s native city. The collection includes more than 200 paintings, drawings and sculptures by Botero as well as 100 works by Picasso, Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Degas, Toulouse Lautrec, Matisse, Chagall, Miró, Klimt, Dali and Henry Moore, from the artist’s own collection.” – The Art Newspaper