Category: visual

Van Gogh show opening this weekend is expected to attract 300,000 visitors and pump $30 million into Detroit’s economy. – Detroit News

— building a Sydney-style opera house that would accommodate up to 60,000 spectators. – South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)

Should museums benefit from financial deals made with collectors who lend artwork for exhibitions? In reality, say some museums, little money is involved. But the appearance of impropriety is expensive. – Boston Globe

Saluting a critic with an exhibition of art is a dicey matter. But John Ruskin, England’s greatest critic, made it easy for the Tate. – The Times (UK)

— sales up 17 percent last year to equal rival Sotheby’s at $2.3 billion. – Financial Times

The discovery, eleven years ago of 28 watercolors, supposedly by Georgia O’Keeffe, brought cheers, and a $5 million sales price, largely on the word of O’Keeffe experts. Now the paintings have been declared fakes, and the lawsuits are beginning to fly. Who knew what when? – New York Times

Rich new prize for “unknown” contemporary British artists takes some getting used to the definitions of what’s new and what’s unknown. – The Telegraph (UK)

If you want to be a curator in Korea, you’ll soon have to pass a state-administered test and get a license. – Korea Times

Is there nothing left to discover? “Advances in technology, transport and communications have made the world a smaller place. The opportunities for adventure that lured great explorers to uncharted corners of the globe are all but exhausted; travel writing and photography have made even the remotest cultures into familiar, coffee-table images.” Britain’s museums climb aboard the spirit of adventure. – New Statesman

A century after German archaeologists hauled back Pergamon’s treasures, “it’s time for Berlin to consider returning some of the antediluvian relics to the land from which they were lost.” – Die Welt