There’s a lot to remember, a lot that the Machine Project inspired. “Machine Project leaves behind a vibrant legacy. Over its existence, the organization collaborated with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on a series of strange-funny performances, and it once organized an architectural tour of L.A. led by artist Cliff Hengst channeling the ghost of Whitney Houston. ‘It was this heavily researched architecture tour,’ says Allen. ‘But it was also this heavily researched story about Whitney Houston.'”
Category: visual
Indianapolis Museum Of Art Director Defends New Vision For The Institution
“Newfields is a new brand for a new type of an organization. Our mission is to create exceptional experiences with art and nature and the nature part is all of a sudden being revealed in pretty serious and very positive, successful ways. “I still think we’ve got a little ways to go before more people understand that we’re all of these things and that we still are a great art museum doing programs and hiring curators and acquiring art, but some people are caught off guard, like, ‘Well, what are they doing on their grounds?'”
Met Museum’s New Admissions Policy Marks A Retreat From Being A National Museum
Phil Kennicott: “It will say to donors — who should take note and respond appropriately — that the Met no longer intends to be the country’s de facto national art museum. By sheer size and visitor numbers, it may remain the most prominent art museum in the country. But it now distinguishes between a local public — those who live in New York — and the rest of the country, which it treats merely as clients. It cannot reasonably approach major donors, those with art they want to leave in the public trust and those with money who hope to support access to that art, and say: We are the nation’s museum.”
Met Museum’s New Admission Policy Speaks To Much Bigger Problems
Jerry Saltz: “I do not begrudge the Met for trying to do whatever it can to maintain its preeminence. Yet this first-time attempt to raise admission before its new director arrives — intended to raise $6 million to $10 million annually — doesn’t entirely pass the smell test. It has an air of expediency, nervousness, an idea drought, of managers rather than art being in charge. Especially since the museum just spent more than $65 million on the space-eating, flow-disrupting, patron-inscribed fountains in the newly renamed Koch Plaza. This single act of philanthropy (Vegas fountains and all) would have covered almost ten years of this iffy admissions policy.”
Daring Jewel Heist At Venice’s Ducal Palace In Broad Daylight
Venice Police Chief Vito Danilo Gagliardi said that the stolen items were a pair of earrings and a brooch made of diamonds, gold and platinum. The pieces — owned by Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah Al Thani — were snatched in the bold daytime robbery on the last day of the exhibit. A preliminary investigation revealed that the pair were able to delay the alarm system for one minute so it wasn’t triggered until the thieves were making their escape, Gagliardi said. He described the culprits as “skilled.”
The ‘Death Effect’ On Artists’ Prices Actually Happens Before They’re Dead (If They Live Long Enough)
“[A pair of research economists] say the death effect – traditionally conceived of as the price bump an artist gets after her death – is actually only observable for living artists, and only in the five years leading up to an artist’s death. In redefining the ‘death effect,’ their research helps explain rising prices for a large cohort of prominent artists reaching advanced ages.”
Saudi Arabia’s Entry In The Gulf Mega-Museum Contest Is On Its Way
“After years of delays and a dearth of information, the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (known as Ithra) in the eastern city of Dhahran is finally getting off the ground. The long-awaited culture hub, which is funded by the Aramco oil conglomerate, should be fully open and operational by the summer.”
Met Museum Now Will Require Non-NYC Residents To Pay Admission
The change reflects the Met’s efforts to establish a reliable, annual revenue stream after a period of financial turbulence and leadership turmoil, particularly given what the Met describes as a sharp decline in people willing to pay the current “suggested” admission price, also $25. But the move could provoke objections from suburbanites and tourists as well as outcry from those who believe a taxpayer funded institution should be free to the public.
Critics: Met Museum’s New Admission Policy Is A Mistake
“I worry that the Met’s plan is classist, and nativist. It divides people into categories — rich and poor, native and foreign — which is exactly what this country does not need right now. I think this is tied to the abstract way wealth is accrued these days. In the last Gilded Age the rich had a much more literal sense of the suffering their fortunes were built on and a greater need to give back.”
Las Vegas Needs A Museum (It Doesn’t Have One)
“Art museums are an essential part of a city’s character. Las Vegas doesn’t have a museum that could stand alongside a MoMA or a Broad, and we need one. Cynics like to hold up the early-2000s failure of the Venetian’s two Guggenheim spaces as evidence that Vegas can’t support an art museum, but could Vegas have supported an NHL team back then? There are 2 million people now living in this Valley, and they’ve proven that they don’t want to travel for the things LA can take for granted. It’s art museum time.”