Category: visual

Loris Gréaud decided to tell everyone who’d listen that Lauren Smart, arts editor at the Dallas Observer, needs to get laid.

“After a five-month legal battle, [the] London-based architect … has withdrawn a lawsuit regarding defamatory comments made about her attitude to migrant workers and her Qatar World Cup stadium project … and has donated the settlement money to an undisclosed charity that ‘protects and champions labour rights’.”

According to the union, the National Gallery plans “to privatise almost all staff, including those who look after the paintings and help the gallery’s six million annual visitors”.

The (40% state-funded) group of museums, having lost its years-long battle against environmental activists demanding disclosure, revealed how much it has been receiving in sponsorship money from the petroleum giant over the past 17 years. The amount has been described in press headlines as “surprisingly low”, “embarrassingly small”, and “laughably small”.

“The institution announced today that it is considering opening an exhibition space in east London’s planned cultural quarter in Olympic Park. The 40,000-sq.-foot gallery would feature rotating and permanent exhibitions drawn from across the Smithsonian’s collection of 138 million objects, which range from Dorothy’s ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz to the space shuttle Discovery.”

“The Victoria and Albert museum has attempted to conceal its ownership of a devotional image of the prophet Muhammad, citing security concerns, in what is part of a wider pattern of apparent self-censorship by British institutions that scholars fear could undermine public understanding of Islamic art and the diversity of Muslim traditions.”

“The window walls are outdated, skylights leak, the mechanical systems are dying, and the terraces are leaking into the basement car storage. But much worse than that, the stones that clad the building are bowing and cracking, which threaten to make it uninhabitable.”

“There are concerns that some may have been stolen. It is feared that others may have been moved amid the upheaval within Leinster House following the largest ever changeover of TDs following the 2011 General Election.”

“That $3 million Caravaggio is looking like a bargain compared to an $81.9 million Andy Warhol.”

“We are expecting these figures to show just how insignificant BP’s funding actually is. That the relationship is a lot more about politics, personal networks and BP buying cultural credibility than it is about actual money and actual reliance.”