Category: visual

What is it about Tracey Emin, anyway? What makes what she does “art”? “If she decides that a tent with the names of 102 people she’s slept with is art, that’s her prerogative. That unmade bed, for instance, ‘illustrates the themes of loss, sickness, fertility, copulation, conception and death’.” – The Scotsman

“Museum retailing, an emblem and essence of the thriving American art museum of the 1990s, is going through turbulent times, rocked by competition in the marketplace and from cyberspace, and changing consumer shopping habits.” – Boston Globe

Tibetan monks spent days making a sand painting at a Connecticut hospital in an attempt to aid the forces of healing there. But a couple of kids, mistaking the painting for a sandbox, destroyed it a couple of minutes. “The monks said it was good for them if the children were happy playing in the sand. They plan to start the project again.” – ABC News

Two curators talk about the Royal Academy’s follow-up show to 1997’s “Sensation.” “Apart from Monet, ‘Sensation’ was the most successful exhibition we’ve had in recent years, we had 300,000 visitors and, above all, they were young visitors, and everybody likes young visitors. There’s this perception that young people are more important, so Sensation gave a kind of buzz to the Royal Academy which was unique, and they said ‘Do it again’.” – The Independent (UK)

• Hans Haacke’s controversial installation at the Reichstag isn’t yet a success. “Because it was designed to involve MPs’ active participation, the artistic statement will never be complete. It will be missing Mr Haacke’s most important ingredient: earth. For the trough is supposed to be filled with dirt scraped together by MPs from their own constituencies. So far, about 30 [of 669] have filled the sacks provided by the artist.” – The Independent (UK)

There’s never been a shortage of filmmakers (from “The Agony and the Ecstasy” to “Basquiat”) trying to get inside a painter’s mind and tell the imagined backstory of a work of art. Spanish director Carlos Saura’s new film, “Goya in Bordeaux” blames a thwarted love affair for the Spanish master’s nightmarish masterpieces. – The Guardian

By the time it closes this week, singer/artist Joni Mitchell’s first-ever painting retrospective will have drawn some 80,000 visitors to a small gallery in Saskatoon, Canada. This “in a city of 210,000 people.” – The Globe and Mail (Canada)

London’s Millennium Dome received a last-minute reprieve from demolition plans Wednesday, after its financial backers cited “grave financial consequences” if it were to close early. – The Independent (UK)

For some time now, the definition of modern art was to shock us in some way, take us aback a little. “Lately, newness—changeable by nature—has transformed itself into something harder to see, especially at first sight. Now, when people aren’t hit with a shock of the new, they think they haven’t been hit at all. When they don’t find the Next Big Thing, or find it fast enough—and this may be a contemporary definition of complacency—they blame art.” – Village Voice

Emergency plans were drawn up to tear down the beleaguered Millennium Dome and sell its land for redevelopment after the Japanese bank Nomura pulled out of talks to purchase the monument – “a humiliating end to a project once hailed by Tony Blair as a symbol of ‘British flair and genius.’” – The Guardian

• AND FALLOUT: If the Dome closes, approximately 1,900 employees will lose their jobs, and “the ultimate victim is likely to be the New Opportunities Fund, which gives lottery money to children, the sick and ‘green’ causes.” – The Times (UK)