Category: visual

Australian art collectors are driving up demand for contemporary art. A new record was set this weekend for the highest price paid for a contemporary Australian painting at Christie’s inaugural contemporary Australian art auction in Sydney. – The Australian

The Zandra Rhodes Museum of Fashion, designed by architect Richard Legorreta, is slated to open in South London in 2002. The museum will address why “architecture and fashion move remarkably closely together at some points in history. The connections are intriguing, for buildings are in many ways a representation of ourselves, our bodies and the ways in which we clothe ourselves. We build facades for ourselves, not just for our buildings.” – The Guardian

“Britain runs a massive national trade surplus in architecture. Our architects can be proud of the European symbols they have created – the Pompidou Centre by Richard Rogers, the Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt and the Reichstag dome, both by Norman Foster, the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart by James Stirling and the new Berlin embassy by his former partner Michael Wilford. But the corollary has been a creativity deficit here which is only now beginning to be cut.” – The Independent (UK)

The internet is revolutionizing the way museums do business. “We’re seeing a revolution, really. Museums are having to completely redefine who they are as well as who are their audiences.” – Chicago Tribune

What exactly does “contemporary” art mean? “Look at what happened to Modern art, which today is considered to have begun as far back as the mid-19th Century. At first the term described the art of its day, but since then the term has been assigned to a certain historical period. Could the category of contemporary art be used one day to classify art of the second half of the 20th Century? What then – the ghastly ‘post-contemporary’?” – Chicago Tribune

Fort Worth’s Kimbell Museum has been damaged with revelations that two members of its board of directors take a combined salary of $1.5 million per year.  “I just hope this doesn’t set a precedent, because if highly qualified people will only serve on nonprofit boards if they are paid then it changes the American system of governance for nonprofits and impacts it negatively.” – Dallas Morning News

Is London’s Victoria and Albert Museum in trouble? “Ever since Elizabeth Esteve-Coll offered us that memorable marketing pitch of ‘An ace caff with quite a nice museum attached’ – and told us via the BBC World Service that the problem with her museum was that it dealt in historical artefacts – we have been left with the impression that, for the powers-that-be at the V&A  the contents of this great, amorphous, impossible, wonderful institution are, somehow, faintly embarrassing.” – London Evening Standard

• “Shaping a city is typically a matter of striking a balance between competing priorities – cars versus people on foot, privately owned buildings versus public space. And so it is just east of Lake Shore Drive, where the Adler Planetarium finished a major expansion last year, the Field Museum and the Shedd Aquarium have big additions of their own in the works, and the Chicago Bears want to renovate Soldier Field, which sits just south of the campus.” – Chicago Tribune

Getty Museum director John Walsh says goodbye after 17 years. “Walsh arrived a year after the Getty Trust received its fortune. As the endowment has grown from $1.2 billion to $5 billion, the Getty Museum has not only spent huge sums on its collections, but also beefed up educational programs, developed what Walsh says is now the best publishing program of any museum in the world and built the new facility at the Getty Center.” – Los Angeles Times

A year ago the Huntington Beach Art Center was a mess – fiscally as well as creatively. After closing for a breather, the center is back – sort of. What does it take to pitch contemporary art today? – Orange County Register