Category: visual

Ontario’s McMichael Gallery is about to be forced to return control of its collection over to the original founders. The Ontario government is convinced that the gallery has lost its way from its original mission. But what would the Group of Seven – the artists whose work forms the core of the collection – think of all this intervention? Not much, thinks one art historian. – The Globe and Mail (Canada)

British Prime Minister Tony Blair called a meeting last week to talk turkey about English architecture. By moving design center stage, he was making the “implicit promise of a new generation of social security offices, barracks, embassies and primary schools that would make Britain a byword for great architecture. It would, so Blair and his advisers blithely promised, have the effect not just of producing good buildings, but also of saving money and producing a healthier, happier society.” – The Observer (UK)

The Tate Britain museums has not been having a good year. Despite a handsome remodel, the Brit has been thoroughly overshadowed by the Tate Modern. Attendance has been spotty, and now comes word that new Tate Britain galleries at Millbank won’t be ready for another year, after a basement flood last spring slowed construction. – London Evening Standard

Earlier this year the Tate (Modern and Britain) arranged the artwork in their galleries thematically rather than in the more traditional chronological order. Curators and critics have been debating the trend of showing art this way, even as more museums adopt the idea. Does it increase understanding or muddy the conversation? – The Telegraph (UK)

The Calcutta government has asked the British to help restore Calcutta’s British colonial architecture. “The Marxist government sees the conservation-led regeneration of the city’s neglected colonial past as part of a larger scheme for social and economic revival by promoting it as a business and tourist attraction. It feels the need to alter the city’s image from what Kipling described as the ‘city of dreadful night’ — summoning up the Black Hole and the slums where Mother Teresa worked — to ‘The gifted city’, as it will be promoted, emphasising its rich cultural and architectural traditions.” – The Art Newspaper

A judge puts a hold on the $512 million settlement reached late last month by the boards of both Christie’s and Sotheby’s, saying that not all the plaintiffs have had a chance to sign off on the agreement. – CNN

Just what can explain the popularity of Jeff Koons? “Koons has had an impressive run at auction. Starting in November 1999, records for Koons weren’t just set, they were obliterated. Several of his exquisitely crafted porcelain sculptures came up and easily cruised through the million-dollar barrier. Suddenly, Jeff Koons prices were in Andy Warhol territory.” Who’s buying this stuff? – Artnet

Britain’s Royal Collection of artwork, housed among the country’s various royal palaces, will go on view to the public in new galleries in Edinburgh and at Buckingham Palace over the next two years. But why isn’t the impressive collection (including the world’s most significant archive of drawings by Leonardo) on permanent, accessible display? “The only way the Queen can do justice to the Royal Collection is to give it to us.” – The Guardian

“Since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, a priceless collection of modern art, bought by the Shah of Iran’s wife and ranging from Picasso and Van Gogh to Bacon and Pollock, has been lost to the viewing world, buried in the vaults of a museum in Teheran. But as the Iranian government has cautiously begun the process of liberalisation during the past two years, some of the paintings have gone on display. The response has been extraordinary, and some of the images produced by the crowds even more extraordinary: women in chadors gazing intently at Andy Warhol’s Marilyn and brown-robed mullahs appraising a Roy Lichtenstein.” – The Telegraph (UK)

The Melbourne Art Fair got underway this week amid well-publicized criticism by Chilean painter Juan Davila that the Australian art world is “ruthlessly mercantile” and expresses a “bankrupt cultural scenario.” “His comments were intended to highlight the ‘serfdom’ to which artists were reduced in the art market because their dealers took 40 to 50 percent of the sale of a painting.” – The Age (Melbourne)