Category: visual

“Critics warn that MoMA’s second expansion in a decade — which will create an ‘art bay’ open to West 53rd Street where ‘spontaneous events’ could be accommodated; free admission for the entire first floor; and a new combination gallery-and-performance space — will move the museum only further in a crowd-pleasing direction, eroding the seriousness and critical distance from popular culture that built its reputation.”

“It’s so weird. You think you know an artist, and then science tells something different about him and you’re like, ‘Oh, well that doesn’t fit my idea of what this artist is.'”

Artist Julian Bell: “At first, the blow seeming so clean and entire, I glimpsed a neat image for it. A rectangle had been punched straight through me and I was an empty frame, the picture gone. And I was struck by the way my fuzzy life had suddenly acquired definition, even if only in negative mode. Now I start to sense the rip is more ragged.”

“Of all the rituals that marked the pre-modern year in Christian Europe, this was the time for the darkest meditations and most intense hopes. This contemplative mood makes the art of Easter far more personal than that of Christmas.”

“Like every aspect of the Detroit bankruptcy, the legal issues surrounding the DIA and its multibillion-dollar collection remain a landscape of uncharted territory and foggy complexities.”

“If I didn’t continue to curate—even now that I have a job that oversees six museums—I would stop breathing. The strong relationship with artists gives me the energy to take on all the business that I have to do.”

“Norway celebrates the 200th anniversary of its constitution this year, and, the artists Mohamed Ali Fadlabi and Lars Cuzner plan to re-enact one of the main attractions from the centenary in 1914: ‘The Congo Village’, in which 80 Africans were put on display, living in cabins with palm roofs surrounded by African artefacts.”

“The Louvre Museum is preparing to reopen its 18th-century galleries on 6 June, after nearly a decade of renovation work.”

“It was removed by crowbar by the leader of a nearby youth club within hours of being found. Dennis Stinchcombe said he hoped to raise £100,000 for the struggling Broad Plain Boys’ Club by auctioning it. But Bristol mayor George Ferguson asked for the work to be put back on the city council-owned wall.”

The Musée Picasso has been closed for renovations for more than four years. “The building site is all but ready, the lights for the art works are in place and except for a few minor technical items, everything is done,” according to the museum’s spokesperson, who gave neither an explanation for the delay nor a revised opening date.