Category: visual

“Officials hope that the museum will become as much of an attraction for faith-based group tours as the Capitol or the Library of Congress, and that hordes will pass through the 40-foot-high, two-ton Gutenberg Bible portals depicting text from Genesis. Tour operators such as Purpose Driven, most traveling by bus and religious in nature, are critical to the museum’s success.”

“Not only that, it has been completely restored, buffed up, burnished, and reinstalled in a surprising location – the SEPTA concourse beneath the Wanamaker Building, where it stands out in a way that it never did when it was up against the wall, blocked by vendor carts, and ignored by shoppers hustling through the [Gallery] mall.”

This marks the second time that The Contemporary has closed: in 2012, it went into a 15-month limbo following an unsuccessful attempt to operate in a building of its own. This time, although the two staffers have been laid off and no shows are scheduled, the problem is not money, according to the board.

“Manhattan district attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. has formed a dedicated antiquities trafficking unit to deal with the increasing number of illicit antiquities cases in New York City. … [Vance’s] office says that the dedicated unit is a logical step given that New York is a major marketplace for art and antiquities – both legitimate and illicit.”

The case is being closely watched because Vara gives artists the right to preserve their work only if it is of “recognised stature”. In November, a Brooklyn jury decided in favour of the artists in a verdict, in effect saying street art deserves protection even when, as at 5Pointz, thousands of works were painted over to continually make way for new art. But the jury verdict was only a recommendation.

A reporter visits an evacuation drill at the Smithsonian, an exercise by the Heritage Emergency and Response Training program (HEART). Said one participant afterward, “I would do 200 things differently.”

The list includes four bona fide celebrities (Yayoi Kusama, Ai Weiwei, David Hockney, and Damien Hirst), several stars within the art world (e.g., Carolee Schneeman, Cindy Sherman, Pope.L), and one veteran artist who’s finally getting the recognition she deserves, 2017 Turner Prize winner Lubaina Himid.

The 11-square-inch canvas, a portrait of the artist as Saint Catherine, sold at auction in Paris on Tuesday for €2.36 million.

Just as chokers and platform sandals are cool again, designers are expressing renewed interest in successful 1990s postmodern landscapes, like Wagner Park or Pershing Square. Despite their significance, these parks are now threatened by thoughtless development.

The story told by the newly released papers, which were made public on Monday, starts in April 2016. That’s when the board of the Berkshire Museum was presented with a detailed report from TDC, a group of museum consultants in Boston. In their “summary of capitalization needs,” TDC concluded that the museum needed about $2 million to pay down debt and about $6 million to improve the facilities. They also penciled in about $23 million in permanent endowments, a sum much greater than the museum’s existing $7.3 million endowment. Altogether, they concluded, the museum needed “an additional $25.61 million in new funds” to “stabilize its operations on multiple dimensions.”