Category: visual

“Foremost among the projects are an €18.5-million (~$20.1 million) plan to rebuild the floor of Rome’s Colosseum — which was removed during excavations toward the end of the 19th century — so that the ancient amphitheater might be used for reenactments of Roman spectacles and other events, and €18 million (~$19.6 million) for the so-called “Great Uffizi” project to renovate and expand the most-visited art museum in Italy.”

“Why do I continue to take the position that the museum’s “Conversations” exhibition, containing works of art owned by Bill and Camille Cosby, must remain open? The answer is that this exhibition is not about the life and career of Bill Cosby. It is about the interplay of artistic creativity in remarkable works of African and African-American art and what visitors can learn from the stories this art tells.”

“The petition received over 760 signatures, including quite a few from prominent artists and arts professionals, including Martha Rosler, Catherine Opie, and former Dean of the USC School of Fine Arts John S. Gordon. Their comments were included in a letter (reproduced below) that accompanied the petition.”

It was declared a “historical heritage asset of exceptional importance” by the Spanish National Court and refused an export permit. An attempt to export the painting to Switzerland on Thursday “drew the attention of French officials”.

“The stash of books about ancient coins and Egyptian pyramids seemed to belong more in a 1950s library in Germany than on the back of a truck filled with shoulder-fired missiles. Then again, if you’re an Islamic State fighter with plans to loot and sell antiquities to the West in order to fund your cause, it helps to know which objects to look for.”

“We at artnet News put our heads together, polled some art-world veterans for suggestions, and assembled this admittedly subjective, non-comprehensive list of colleagues who have changed the shape of the American art world.”

“I inherited a gallery manager who was extremely upset at everything. The invoice demands were flowing in – totalling at least half a million pounds – from a lot of irate people. I feel like a naive fool now.”

“In a slim, Day-Glo orange book that caused a furor when it was published in Germany last year, … a 31-year-old German entrepreneur/professor/art adviser named Magnus Resch … argues that most galleries are undercapitalized and inefficient, and moreover, that with McKinsey-like business strategies … the entire art market could be turned into a profit-generating machine.”

The artists Gerard & Kelly “saw performer compensation ‘as a blind spot in how performance was entering [museum] collections’… They learned that the going rate museums paid performers in major 2010 exhibitions was about $20 an hour, which they found low and arbitrary. (This includes Marina Abramovic’s piece at the Museum of Modern Art, they said, and Tino Sehgal’s at the Guggenheim, the first performance piece that museum acquired.)” So they negotiated a wage formula for performers in their latest work, and included it in the license for any museum that wants to present it.

Over the past year, Gulf Labor members travelled to Abu Dhabi and India to interview more than 50 workers. Although press reports often focus on living and working conditions on Saadiyat Island, the researchers found that “underpayment is far and away the primary concern” for the workers themselves.