A major new study details a brief history of looting of cultural artifacts and treasures. “Maya ceramics from the Petén that bring the looter $200 to $500, may ultimately fetch $100,000. In the case of five big-ticket items (a Song Dynasty head, Morgantina acroliths, Euphronius krater, Achyris phiale, and Marsyas statue), where we know the initial payout and the final price, middlemen received 98% of the money.” – Archaeology Magazine
Category: visual
DESIGN BY EXAMPLE
Roman architect and writer Pino Scaglione has been urging discussion in Rome about encouraging more contemporary architecture in the tradition-bound city. To that end, he’s organized an exhibit in Rome of Berlin’s 20th-century design highlights. “Scaglione eyes Berlin enviously – unlike Rome, which looks back, it looks forward.” – Die Welt (Germany)
THE GOOG ONLINE
The Guggenheim Museum’s most ambitious architecture may have nothing to do with Frank Gehry. The Goog has bet the budget equivalent of one of its land galleries on developing a radical “virtual” museum online. “Though much has been made of the marriage of computers and architecture, the computer is still used chiefly as a facilitator—a tool to help conceptualize or produce a final object. But what of an autonomous digital architecture—an architecture that is conceived of, rendered, built, and exists and is experienced solely on the computer?” – Architecture Magazine
WHAT KIND OF PRIORITY?
While museum’s on America’s East Coast struggle to track down provenance of their artwork for the time around World War II, California museums lag far behind. “It’s a high priority, but we don’t have the resources in place,” says a spokesperson for the Armand Hammer Museum. Meanwhile, the Getty Museum, just completing a first phase of inquiry, “has found that more than half of its paintings collection has wartime gaps – 248 of its 425 works.” – Washington Post
RESTORING THE PATH OF FAITH
This month, Coptic Christians in Egypt are celebrating the 2000th anniversary of the Holy Family’s travel through Egypt. In preparation for the thousands of pious pilgrims that will come to retrace their path, the Egyptian Heritage Revival Association is pouring millions of Egyptian pounds into the restoration of tombs, icons, altars…and the installation of restrooms. – Egypt Today
FEAR OF THE NEW?
“The Wallace Collection is a hugely loved, gilded time-warp set in a magnificent house in the center of London. Its superb works of art – including the best collection of French 18th-century artifacts outside France – were collected by one family and left to the nation. Small wonder that it inspires a rare passion and woe betide anyone who attempts to alter so much as a strand of horsehair stuffing.” That’s exactly why so many are nervous about Wallace’s reopening this week after a thoroughly modernizing remodel. – London Evening Standard
DOING BATTLE WITH THE PAST
Over the last 30 years, the Italian government has been cleaning and restoring some of the most famous frescoes of the Renaissance. “Apart from carrying out the essential work of cleaning, repairing structural damage, and protecting the frescoes from damp, restorers have also used the latest technology to try to determine the exact nature of the original painting; and have used that analysis to offer a definitive image of the work for future generations.” That’s where the controversy begins. – The Independent (UK)
ART PACT
The Guggenheim Foundation and St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum have inked a deal to share their collections, collaborate on exhibitions, and help each other develop a worldwide network of museums. – New York Times
HERE MOOSIE MOOSIE
Several North American cities have been overrun this summer with painted fiberglass animals. Toronto has 300 moose distributed around its downtown streets. “The Toronto moose are clearly about urban boosterism, corporate publicity, civic high spirits, tourist marketing.” And not about art. Shouldn’t the things we put up in our urban landscape aim for a little more? – The Globe and Mail (Canada)
SEX AND THE CITY
The Venice Biennale’s International Architecture Exhibition poses questions about how we live. “It prompts the myriad architects, landscape architects and urban designers featured here to say where they stand in the ‘disorder affecting a society in rapid transformation’ and ‘the turmoil of globalization.’ It asks them to use information and technology to improve the human condition, and ‘make forecasts about the future once again.'” – National Post (Canada)