Category: visual

“The Foster masterplan has come under criticism for failing to preserve any of the area’s unique 19th-century architecture, and for attempting to impose a “Haussmann-style” order on the neighbourhood.”

Michael Kimmelman: “After years of noisy protests, the New York City Department of Sanitation’s new garage-and-salt-shed … … I can’t think of a better public sculpture to land in New York than the shed.”

“Controversy over wall text today might be said to have dawned with the age of heightened sensitivities to other cultures, races, and sexual proclivities a few decades ago.”

“British and American cultural influences collide with the inescapable realities of the weather, resulting in a lot of sweaty people in Santa hats lolling about on Bondi Beach. … A look at archival images from Australia’s state libraries shows some of the odder ways the country combines traditional Christmas images with Down Under culture.”

“The French government has calculated that [Daniel Wildenstein’s] estate could owe, with fines and interest, at least 550 million euros, or roughly $600 million, in France alone. Next month, several family members are scheduled to go on trial here on tax fraud and money-laundering charges.”

“The three-room Shakespeare Gallery, opened by the publisher John Boydell in 1789 on the fashionable Pall Mall in London, closed in 1805. In its day, it was a sensation, attracting emotional crowds who came to gawk at enormous canvases depicting scenes from Shakespeare’s tragedies, comedies and history plays, commissioned from Britain’s leading painters and hung cheek by jowl on the pale blue walls. ‘It was the Georgian equivalent of binge-watching Shakespeare,’ said Janine Barchas, an English professor who led the project.”

“Museum lovers rely on the benevolence of elite collectors who give their artworks and collections up for public consumption. The law encourages collectors to give to museums. What concerns Congress is the prospect of tax shelters that do little more than flatter wealthy collectors.”

“Both sets were fabricated from terra cotta, so this becomes a tale of two castings: one set preserved and cared for, the other ignored and lost until found in the most unlikely circumstances.”

“There’s been a bohemian class in New York that’s been sustained basically since the 1950s. It’s one of the attractions of New York. So the New-York-as-creative-hub mythology is actually not that mythical. People really are attracted to the city for that reason. But New York has also become a commercial hub in terms of advertising and publishing and TV production, film production, all of these different things, and for that reason, you could be kind of an everyday artist, but you can also end up getting a job in the creative industries.”

The acquisition, Neil MacGregor said, “will allow all visitors to the museum to reflect on this significant moment in the history of Europe, a great migration which may change the way we understand our continent.