Category: visual

France celebrates the unveiling of its Peace Wall 2000 beside the Eiffel Tower, a 17-meter long, 9-meter high wall covered in the word “peace” in 32 languages. Artist Clara Halter says the wall was inspired by Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall. It has “holes for members of the public to place their own personal wishes.” – CBC

French archaeologists have discovered another pyramid near Cairo, built for a queen some 4000 years ago. The find boosts the number of pyramids in Egypt to 108. – Fox News (Reuters)

As in auction block, of course. US customs officials in New York seized a 10th-century Chinese marble sculpture that they said had been stolen from an ancient tomb and was set to be sold at Christie’s auction gallery. The sculpture is said to be one of ten ripped from the Five Dynasties tomb of Wang Chuzhi in Hebei Province, in northeastern China, in 1994. – New York Times

The drawings (by Frank Gehry) have already been done for the Guggenheim’s new branch in lower Manhattan. But the city of New York may have other plans for the site Guggenheim officials had settled on. – New York Times

The first-ever Bill Mason art exhibit and sale opened Friday in a tiny gallery outside Ottawa, but don’t bring your checkbook – all 50 paintings were sold within 22 minutes of the show’s opening. Phone purchases were scheduled to begin half an hour after the doors opened – but that was already eight minutes after the last ‘sold’ sticker went up. “It’s almost as if Mason created these tiny glimpses of art just for people who appreciate the charms made accessible by a canoe” – All About Canoes News

London’s much-hyped Millennium Dome has unveiled its enduring legacy – a collection of newly commissioned artworks, all of which are to “serve as reminders of Britain’s hopes, fears, dreams and achievements as it entered the third millennium.”  – London Evening Standard

This year’s Whitney Biennial was supposed to show that there’s good art outside the main art centers. But “the show has remarkably few surprises, and most of these aren’t that good. With several notable exceptions, too many of the under-known artists here turn out to be that way for a reason, which is the weakness of their work. This suggests two possible explanations. Either the centers are more permeable than we think—that is, ‘good art’ finds a way to get known—or the curators were too narrow. – Village Voice

After drifting into obscurity, and to the brink of closing down, due to financial woes over the last 14 years, the Detroit Institute of Arts is back in the black due to a new management structure, an infusion of cash from private donors, and a major exhibition of van Gogh’s paintings and drawings. “I haven’t seen it this crowded, the lines were terrific,” said one visitor. – New York Times

When the government of Germany moved its capital back to Berlin, it faced a building problem. No one care much about the East German buildings thrown up in the last 55 years. But “the unique style of the Third Reich’s state architecture – huge, bleak geometrical structures with endless corridors are an impressive reminder of that terrible era. Both architects and the new tenants had to modernize these relics of totalitarian rule in a way filled their offices and halls with the spirit of a modern liberal democracy.” – Die Welt (Germany)

In a rare show of public protest, some of China’s preeminent architects and scholars are voicing their opposition to a government-backed plan to build a modern 2,500-seat opera house near Mao’s mausoleum in downtown Beijing. Critics of the Grand National Theatre – or “big duck egg,” as its glass-and-titanium design is becoming known – cite aesthetic as well as economic rationales. “The structure…is to cover 25 acres that supported hundreds of courtyard houses until they were bulldozed during the past few months.” – Financial Times