Category: visual

When Australia’s National Gallery hired a critic as its curator of Australian art last year, there were plenty of complaints that John McDonald “had no curatorial experience and was hostile to contemporary art.” Now, less than a year into the job McDonald is considering quitting, complaining that 90 per cent of the job is administrative, “whereas he had originally thought paperwork would take only half his time.” – The Australian

Life expectancy for a Russian orphan is 26 years. A Russian artist went into an orphanage bringing art and invited the orphans to draw their dreams. “They painted brilliant rainbows, pink buses and staircases to cotton-candy skies. They were joyous images that belied their grim surroundings. The purpose of this project is not to turn children into artists. The purpose is to help them to overcome the various obstacles that they face because they’re orphans.” – The Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

America has finally gotten better at protecting its cultural past, trying to preserve important pieces of its history. But are we going to far, now? “Here, for instance, we find millions of dollars allocated for tenement and prison renovation, the repair of fetid laundry rooms and leaky school roofs. Yes, there is funding for traditional cultural activity such as repair of classic houses designed by H.H. Richardson and Frank Lloyd Wright. But there is also money for sprucing up tourist traps and old scrapbooks.” – Philadelphia Inquirer

About half of the Museum of Modern Art’s 250 administrative employees have been on strike against the museum since April. But though some of the museum’s educational programs have had to be canceled, the strike seems to have had little impact on the museum’s operations. – New York Post

An art sale in Mexico is attracting a lot of attention. The work for sale was stripped from the walls of Mexico’s failed banks. “The exhibition is the first time many of the works have been displayed publicly since being seized by the government following Mexico’s 1994-95 banking crisis. The auction – part of the government’s efforts to recoup some $100 billion paid to bail out the industry – has sparked a ‘morbid curiosity’.” – Financial Times

The New York art scene is hotter than ever. “Gone are the somnolent years of the early ‘90s, when ‘art party’ conjured up images of cramped gallery openings or struggling artists convening at someone’s loft to consume white wine from plastic cups and white powder from bathroom counters. With the economy revving like the ‘80s, the art market is also back to eighties-style extravagance, from the inflated price tags to the high-velocity socializing.” – New York Magazine

The controversy over the authenticity of a set of watercolors purported to be by Georgia O’Keeffe is the biggest scandal in years to hit the National Gallery of Art. “Whether a grand deception or just a garage-sale dream gone wrong, it never should have happened. The warning signs were there from the start, but they were swept away by a tsunami of money and wishful thinking.” – Washington Post

• Plans for a huge history museum with “fake fog, a mini Golden Gate Bridge and a re-creation of the 1960s-era Haight-Ashbury district” have Bay Area residents conflicted. “Opponents deride the plan as a kitschy, Las Vegas-style tourist trap and consider the fight to stop the 70,000-square-foot San Francisco Interactive History Museum no less than a battle for the city’s soul.” – The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

Virtual reality now lets viewers wander through ancient cities. “Although virtual exhibitions and computer-based museums have been a promising possibility since the first works of art were scanned and stored, technology has only just caught up with the expectations placed upon it. – The Art Newspaper