Category: visual

Rebecca Mead considers Tracey Emin’s famous installation My Bed and the mattress that Columbia undergrad Emma Sulkowicz has been carrying with her on campus, an art project (which she is submitting as a thesis) inspired by a rape she alleges happened in her dorm room.

Speaking to Mashable on the condition of anonymity, the artists said they chose the spot because it is “loaded with significance and meaning and reverence of others.” It positions Snowden, they said, “as a continuation of a story that began at the beginning of this country” — one represented in the plight of the captured Americans.

“The widespread zeal for buzz among museum trustees and directors is taking a toll, culturally, on museums and their place in the civic realm—especially as inflation drives the scale and ubiquity of stunts up and up and up.”

“It’s a $60 billion market where you can’t find out real prices, real ownership or the actual buyers and sellers. But as values have gone up, we have more lawsuits, and collectors are finding out what really goes on behind the scenes.”

“The $113 million for Pier 55, for which Hudson River Park still has only an oral pledge from Mr. Diller, has put the spotlight on the park’s longstanding financial problems, embodied by the deterioration of Pier 40, at the foot of Houston Street.”

The California Supreme Court “chastened the museum in its ruling, stating ‘that there is nothing unfair about affording plaintiff an opportunity to pursue the merits of her claims against Norton Simon… Museums are sophisticated entities that are well-equipped to trace the provenance of the fine art that they purchase.'”

“They have kept control of the design of the new zones of quaffing and scoffing rather than let the in-house fit-outs of catering chains run riot, as has happened elsewhere on the South Bank. With the help of extensive scholarship on the subject of 1970s board-marked concrete, they have cleaned and repaired it. It looks beautiful.”

“Some French lawmakers, for example, are raising the prospect of selling some of the 500,000 objects in storage at the Louvre, using an American model that would limit museums to shedding duplicate works that are not part of a core collection and using the proceeds to pay for future acquisitions.”

“Penelope Curtis had become the focus of interest at Tate Britain in a way that wasn’t healthy for her or the museum. Her record was actually mixed: she improved the main collection displays, putting more of the Tate’s collection on view. That was good.”