“Creating a design award can be a daunting task. The challenge involves conceiving an object that’s not only new but somehow noble, based on a genre that is essentially kitsch (think bowling trophies). At the same time the trophy should have a timeless, abstract quality that doesn’t appear too suggestive of any style or period.” – Metropolis
Category: visual
SELLING REVOLUTION
“As art resources become scarcer, auction houses fight to the death to get works for sale and give in to requests for high estimates and assorted ‘reserves’ demanded by vendors. Every auction becomes a lottery. Some vendors make a killing by hitting the jackpot, others kill their goods as failure to sell is broadcast worldwide. As such mishaps multiply, the credibility of the system crumbles to dust.” – The Art Newsroom
OF IMAGES MOVING AND STILL
Painting and cinema are still handcuffed together on a one-way ticket to the morgue. When artists appropriate images from film they always seem to be drawn to the melancholy underside of the tinsel factory. Painting and cinema both create fictional spaces, but the space of painting is static. So when a moment in a film is snatched and turned into a painting, it becomes deathly: you might call it painting noir.” – The Guardian
BRITISH MUSEUM GREAT COURT OPENS
The Queen opens the British Museum’s new Great Court. “She hailed the £100m development, with its sweeping roof designed by Lord Foster, as a landmark of the millennium.” – BBC
- BIG SPACE: “The £100 million development has transformed the world-famous museum’s two-acre inner courtyard – hidden for 150 years – into Europe’s largest covered square, the size of Wembley football pitch.” – London Evening Standard
THREE-RING MUSEUM
“Considering the Guggenheim’s latest proposal, to appropriate a sizable portion of lower Manhattan for the purpose of creating a mammoth fun-and-games cultural emporium: The Guggenheim Museum is itself no longer a serious art institution. It has no aesthetic standards and no aesthetic agenda. It has completely sold out to a mass-market mentality that regards the museum’s own art collection as an asset to be exploited for commercial purposes.” – New York Observer
GOING AFTER THE GUY AT THE TOP
The US government is aggressively going after Bernard Taubman, formerly chairman of Sotheby’s, trying to tie him to the price-fixing scandal with Christie’s. The government is attempting “to build its case against Mr. Taubman with the testimony of assistants who could confirm meetings between top executives from each company.” – New York Times
MORE POSSIBLE NAZI LOOT
The National Gallery in Ottawa says it has 100 works of art with undocumented provenance during the Nazi era. The museum is posting the artwork to its website in an attempt to track down details. – Ottawa Citizen
SCHOLARSHIP TAKES A BACK SEAT
The British Museum’s redesign is certain to drive up attendance and draw viewers who care more about the architecture than the collection. “A more fundamental question, however, is how much the museum’s rush to modernize itself will threaten its scholarly mission.” – New York Times
ART STING
U.S. Customs officials in New York marked the opening of a new art fraud investigation center by returning to Germany a 16th-century painting stolen from a German castle by American soldiers after World War II. About 65 percent of all U.S. art imports arrive through the port of New York – investigations there this year alone have already seized $10.5 million worth of stolen art. – CNN
MARBLE SNUB
The Greek ambassador declines a gala invitation to the re-opening of the British Museum after the museum declines a Greek request not to hold a reception in the room that houses the Parthenon marbles. – The Guardian