Category: visual

Tate Modern has already seen more than one million visitors since its opening six weeks ago. Meanwhile, at Tate Britain (dedicated to national British art) weekly totals have been plummeting since its April opening. Have audiences lost interest in anything other than contemporary art? Or are the curators at fault for putting together stodgy shows?” – The Guardian

The Guggenheim Museum has been negotiating with Las Vegas’ Venetian Hotel to bring the Guggenheim’s most successful show ever to the Vegas Strip. “It’s not a display of Picassos but ‘The Art of the Motorcycle.’ Featuring more than 100 motorcycles, the exhibition debuted in New York two years ago and currently is parked at the Guggenheim’s acclaimed Frank Gehry-designed museum in Bilbao, Spain. – Los Angeles Times

Okay, let’s say by some remarkable change of heart, Britain gave up its plunder and did decide to return the Elgin Marbles to Greece. Just where would they go? – The Art Newspaper

Rome spent two years sprucing up – scrubbed, repaired, or repainted monuments, villas, churches, and fountains, cleaning its buildings and monuments for an expected influx of tourists for the millennial year. All look more glorious than they have in several generations. Cleansed of soot and painstakingly restored to their 17th-century visage, the city’s baroque architectural masterpieces are at their best. But so far the expected rush of new visitors hasn’t appeared. – Boston Globe (Washington Post)

“London isn’t the only European city to have unveiled something big, dazzling and avant-garde this summer.” Munich’s Bavarian state gallery now has an astonishing collection of late-20^th-century art, recently donated by a wealthy German couple. “In Munich, art-lovers are rubbing their eyes in disbelief. No fewer than 550 astonishing pieces have just been donated. A year ago Munich had virtually no notable avant-garde art. Now it has a collection that is the envy of Berlin, Paris and – yes, let’s be honest – even Tate Modern itself.” – The Times (UK)

— has been sweeping the Australian art market in recent years. On Monday, Sotheby’s in Melbourne set a new world auction record for an Aboriginal artist when a painting by Johnny Warangkula sold for nearly $½ million. “The rise of interest in Aboriginal art has been astonishing. In 1990, a mere $169,000 worth of Aboriginal art was sold at auction. By 1996, sales amounted to $1.36 million; within two years turnover exceeded $5 million.” – Sydney Morning Herald

BUT IT’S STILL BUST FOR SOME: Meanwhile, the 68-year-old artist – who was among those who pioneered the popular “dot painting” style nearly 30 years ago – was shocked to hear of the sale (as was his family, when they learned they had no legal claim to the proceeds). Warangkula sold the painting to an Alice Springs artist in 1972 for $150. Now the Aboriginal art group Desart is pressuring Sotheby’s and other art dealers to pass on some of the proceeds of these sales to Aboriginal artists. – Sydney Morning Herald

The Venice Biennale’s architecture show is the most expensive and extensive ever mounted. The exhibts have brought out “thrilling use of film and photography, accompanied by an astonishing number of superb models. Never before has it been possible to represent cities so vividly, sometimes on a scale approaching life-size, as in the fantastic 1,000ft-long screen in the old Ropery of the Arsenale, where full-size trains flash down the vista.” – The Times (UK)

An indigenous arts organization in Australia has warned Australia could be flooded with fake Aboriginal artwork in the lead-up to the Olympics. “People have been importing from Indonesia and other places thousands of didgeridoos already made up and then getting other people, backpackers, to paint them up here.” – The Age (Melbourne)

Richard Feigen is one of the foremost dealers in Old Master paintings – and a famously difficult personality. His new book illuminates some of the more shadowy corners of the art world. “There is, for example, a scathing account of the shenanigans several years ago at the Barnes Foundation, the fabled museum outside Philadelphia, when trustees attempted to sell off holdings in violation of its founder’s will – an attempt Feigen all but single-handedly scotched. Or there’s his comparing the exhibitions policy at New York’s Metropolitan Museum, with its ‘random mixture of box-office frivolity with serious art,’ to ‘a nice girl of good family who just once in a while goes out and turns tricks for some pocket change.'” – Boston Globe

Last month the Museo de Monterrey – one of Mexico’s leading art museums – closed when the industrial group FEMSA announced that it was pulling its support. The consensus in Mexico is that a new generation of corporate leaders is abandoning its predecessors’ commitment to arts and cultural institutions.” – San Antonio Express-News