“For almost two decades, self-taught artist Nek Chand worked in secret. In the cover of night, he’d sneak away to a clearing deep in a forest owned by the government on the outskirts of the Indian city of Chandigarh. It was there that he built his very own shangri-la: a garden filled with glittering sculptures of gods, goddesses, and other mystical beings.” Here’s the decades-long story of Chand’s Rock Garden.
Category: visual
Smithsonian To Open Satellite Museum In London
“The Smithsonian Institution has confirmed that it will work with the Victoria and Albert Museum to set up a joint gallery and exhibition programme in East London, on the former Olympic site. Yesterday (9 April) the Smithsonian’s regents (trustees) gave formal approval for their first base outside the US.”
Metropolitan Museum Of Art’s New Director Is –
“For the first time in 60 years, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has reached beyond its own doors for a new leader … Max Hollein, 48, currently the director and chief executive of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and a veteran of Germany’s oldest art foundation, will become its 10th director this summer.”
Montreal Biennale Files For Bankruptcy
The 33 creditors listed range widely, including Artforum magazine, New York “global cultural communications company” Sutton PR, and the biennale’s own accounting firm, Dagenais, Lapierre, Simard et Associes. (Full disclosure: Canadian Art Foundation, the charitable foundation that publishes Canadian Art, is also listed among the creditors in the document.)
Commerce, Curation, Blockbuster Shows, And The Purpose(s) Of Art Museums
“‘The right function of every museum,’ wrote John Ruskin, the influential 19th-century art and social critic, ‘is the manifestation of what is lovely in the life of nature, and heroic in the life of men.’ Museums of the 21st century have moved on a bit. … They are also ‘destination’ enterprises, with permanent collections and special exhibitions, cafes and shops trying to attract as many visitors as possible in an age of global tourism. … As leading museums compete for crowd-drawing exhibits, and try to balance commercial interests and cultural diversity, visitors are bearing a rising proportion of the cost.”
The Big Encyclopedic Art Museum In A Little Massachusetts City
“Where might you expect to find William Hogarth’s fine and recently restored portraits of William and Elizabeth James, or a lobby-filling Roman floor-mosaic from Antioch that depicts a lively lion and antelope hunt? Or Otto Dix’s painting of a pregnant woman, which has its own visitors book nearby, so that people can record their usually extreme reactions to it?” Worcester, Mass., that’s where. Says director Matthias Waschek, “The big problem we have is that the collection is outsizing its city.”
Saudi Arabia To Create New $20 Billion Cultural Heritage Site
“Under the contract, France will help create a blueprint for museums, archaeological digs and conservation in the region, as well as develop transport, hotels, crafts, education and training, urban planning and other infrastructure projects. The tourism plan is described as ‘the most important ever seen in the Arab world’. The cost has not yet been determined, but a source close to the project says the whole budget could amount to more than $20bn. Saudi Arabia has pledged to finance everything, according to a diplomatic source.”
Up To Ninety Percent Of Art Sold As ‘Aboriginal’ In Australian Souvenir Shops Is Fake (And Imported)
That’s (obviously?) not a good thing for actual Aboriginal artists in Australia. But there’s no law against it. The chair of Western Australia’s Aboriginal Art Hub “said the current Indigenous art code, which attempts to promote ethical trading in Aboriginal art, needed to be mandatory and better resourced.”
A Rock With Yoko Ono’s Handwriting Has Been Stolen From A Toronto Museum
Was it maybe a mistake? “‘It’s a totally interactive (exhibit), there’s a bunch of rocks on the ground and people can walk up to them and pick them up,’ Long said. The intention is that the rocks are returned to the exhibit once the meditation is over.”
How To Preserve Outdoor Art? Enlist The U.S. Army, Of Course
Just whoa: “Alexander Calder, who famously rejected the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1976 as a form of protest against the Vietnam War, would be extremely surprised to learn that the conservation of his outdoor sculptures is increasingly a result of a collaboration between art conservators and the US Army Research Laboratory.”