Category: visual

“The redisplay will help tackle the problem of growing visitor numbers, by spreading out visitors (until now they swarmed to the main display of Van Gogh’s works on the first floor).”

“A recovering stock market did a lot of the heavy lifting, but so did adroit sleights of hand. During the recession, several heavyweight museums quietly added seats to their boards as a way to shore up their sagging bottom lines.”

“Threaded through a neighborhood that in demographic terms is mostly Latino, well served by subway and bus lines, K-town is a thriving, charismatic advertisement for a more intensely urban Los Angeles.”

“Profits from the sales of conflict antiquities are clearly partly underwriting Islamic State operations, and thus partly underwriting repression, war and genocide. And regardless of the precise numbers, that reality reinforces the need for cultural property protection, antiquities trade regulation and powerful policing.”

“While the loss and anguish of Nazi art looting is well known, a second series of German art seizures, decades after World War II, has largely gone unnoticed. Between 1973 and 1989 the East German police, known as the Stasi, seized more than 200,000 objects in hundreds of raids, according to experts and official archives.”

“An irregularity in the awarding of one of the most significant local art commissions in years has resulted in the resignation of a Houston Arts Alliance executive and stunned a sculptor who was preparing to create the biggest project of his career.”

You may remember that when the Nigerian-British artist’s rendition of the Madonna was exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum in 1999, following uneventful showings in Europe, all hell broke loose (as it were). Now the piece is back in New York, attracting no particular controversy. Alastair Sooke considers what’s changed over the past 15 years.

“As 2014 winds down, the Barnes has no permanent director. There’s no permanent chief curator. The spotlight is hot and unblinking. So how’s it going after 2½ years?” Rather well, it seems – for several reasons.

Tanis Taylor: “I’ve been on the other side of the easel for more than 20 years. I know that where I’m standing is hallowed ground. Sacred. A life drawing discipline is non-judgemental; no body fascism here.” Nevertheless, she experiences a mix of British bashfulness and body shame – at first.