Category: visual

“Artist-endowed foundations are the sleeping giants of philanthropy,” says András Szántó, a New York-based analyst and cultural consultant. Indeed, these charitable foundations, endowed by an artist with assets (archives, property and art among them) used for the public good, are quietly but dramatically changing the US art landscape through their grant-making programmes, scholarship, research activities and contributions to museum collections.

“The J. Paul Getty Trust announced Monday that it was cutting 34 jobs in its museum division, with the expected annual savings of $4.3 million to be redirected to art acquisitions. There will be no reductions in the exhibition schedule or public programs, the Getty said, and no cuts to curatorial and art-conservation staffs.”

“However coyly subversive, much of it seems aimed both at foreign curiosity seekers and at a native moneyed class with an appetite for slick advertising and pop mockery. A regrettably high number of photographs made in China over the past decade are worthier of study as sociology than as art.”

“The expansion of the new Exposition Light Rail (Expo) connecting downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica means major changes to the Bergamot Station Arts Center, a 7.4-acre complex that houses 35 galleries in several metal-clad industrial buildings. An 18-year-old art space is being threatened with destruction and gallery owners worry they could be pushed out by rising rents when the new railway stop opens in 2015.”

The (possibly better; surely more outrageous) covers that didn’t make it through the process, culled by the magazine’s art editor.

London’s filled with kitschy fashion and design this season. “But what exactly is kitsch? Why is it making a comeback? And why does it provoke such knee-jerk disapproval?”

Although Georges Braque denied that his painting Vanitas I was about death or religion, some art historians think that he was probably lying. Whom – or what – to believe?

“The work is intended as modern depiction of the Greek myth of Leda and the Swan.
But a Metropolitan police officer who saw the Derrick Santini image from a bus was alarmed. He alerted his colleagues and two uniformed officers went to the gallery.” The sales director said, “They stood there and didn’t leave until we took the piece down.”

“While teaching a design class at California College of the Arts several years ago, Brian Kane noticed that his students often didn’t sit. They instead draped themselves across their chairs or lounges, completely absorbed by their various electronic devices. Sealed off from the world by earphones and entranced by glowing screens, they were as likely to sprawl sideways as to sit up straight. Even in public places, many of them liked to rearrange the furniture and transform those spaces into their own customized zones for working, meeting or socializing.”

“Sotheby’s experts anticipate the work will fetch more than $80 million, the highest presale figure the auction house has ever set.” Who might pay such a price, and why?