Category: visual

Britain’s Turner Prize has somewhat of an infamous reputation, with some saying that gimmicks are rewarded at the expense of more thoughtful art. This year’s shortlist, revealed Wednesday, is no exception. – Yahoo! (Reuters)

Russia’s Hermitage Museum loaned Matisse’s “La Danse” for an exhibition in Italy. It was the first time the collection had been seen outside Russia and after the exhibition finished last weekend in Rome, the art was scheduled to be put on show in Milan until August. “But in a surprise legal move the heirs of the original owner demanded that the Italian courts confiscate the huge painting. So the painting was quickly transported back to Russia before it could be enmeshed in legal action.” – The Independent (UK)

“[Matisse’s] ‘La Danse’, painted in 1910, was one of many works of art confiscated from private collections by Lenin and the Bolsheviks a year after the Russian Revolution of 1917. It belonged to one of pre-revolutionary Russia’s most eminent art connoisseurs, Sergei Ivanovich Shukin, who came from a Russian-Jewish family that made its fortune in textiles.” – The Times (UK)

The University of Massachusetts thought it was doing a neighborhood-improvement thing when it tried to organize a sculpture garden of important work. But now the neighborhood is objecting big time, and someone even went so far as to smash the base for one of the sculptures. “The big issue isn’t the desirability of a sculpture park filled with millions of dollars’ worth of work that would go a long way toward improving Boston’s current reputation as a completely dysfunctional city when it comes to public art. The issue is town-gown friction, a variation on what happens every time Harvard wants to expand its art museums, world-class institutions that enrich not just the university community, but the community at large.” – Boston Globe

Spencer Tunick has been arrested five times for organizing his photo shoots of crowds of naked people. So he sued the city of New York and last weekend a judge ruled he could go ahead with a project placing 125 naked volunteers under a Manhattan bridge. “I like that it brings more attention to the background of the photograph. There’s equal tension. First you look at the background, and then your eyes are drawn to the body and the relationship between the vulnerability of human nakedness and the public space.” – National Post (Canada)

Australia’s National Gallery has money problems. Why?  In part, because the museum “has paid more than $560,000 in relation to 19 former employees who have left since the appointment of Dr Brian Kennedy as director three years ago. The gallery’s legal expenses budget has blown out to more than $200,000 this financial year – more than four times its $50,000 annual allocation.” – Sydney Morning Herald

A painting recovered in Izmir, Turkey, last week is believed to be a 1908 Picasso (“La Fermiere”) stolen from the Kuwaiti royal palace by an Iraqi army captain during the Gulf War. – Times of India (AP)

Museums have discovered that online sales of museum merchandise do better than giftshop sales in the museum. It’s a large an untapped market, say online retailers. “People are giving suboptimal gifts. We want them to give gifts based on the finest works of art in the world.” – New York Times

London’s Wallace Collection, a private museum of 18th-century furniture, ceramics, and Old Master paintings, has undergone a £10.6 million restoration and a modern facelift in the hopes of becoming the UK’s hub for the study of the 18th-century decorative arts. The new galleries open to the public next week. – The Telegraph (UK)

“It cost seven times more than the dome, was finished a year and a half late, and its teething problems have driven thousands of commuters round the twist. But all was forgiven yesterday when the sleek Jubilee Line extension won the title of millennium building of the year.” – The Guardian