Tag: 03.12.00

The heir of a German industrialist is seeking a 19th-century landscape by Courbet from the Art Institute of Chicago, that she says was stolen from her father by Nazis in WWII. Her successful bid last summer for a van Gogh drawing, L’Olivette, from a Berlin museum has been widely credited with accelerating Germany’s program to return looted art. – Jerusalem Post

— says she’ll cut off her support to the museum in protest. Marylou Whitney said that a work by Hans Haacke, planned for the Whitney’s 2000 Biennial, would belittle the Holocaust, politicize art and violate the principles on which the Whitney was founded by her late mother-in-law, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. – New York Times

• OTHER WHITNEYS DEFEND WORK: As Marylou Whitney withdrew her support of the Whitney Museum two other Whitney heirs lambasted her position. “It is regrettable that so many have chosen to lash out at an artist who has consistently been a voice of social conscience … This country should allow the free and unfettered expression of ideas through art.” – New York Post
  
  
• GIULIANI WON’T BE PUNITIVE, he says, about a work in the Whitney Biennial that compares the New York mayor to the Nazis. – New York Times

Rumors that the famous Van Gogh painting, bought by Japanese industrialist Ryoei Saito at auction in 1990 for $82.5 million, would turn up in the new Van Gogh show opening today in Detroit, prove false. Since Saito died four years ago, museums and curators have been searching for the most expensive painting ever sold. – Philadelphia Inquirer

Thirty years into his revolution, conceptual artist Sol LeWitt is still making his audience nervous. He doesn’t do his own work, doesn’t make originals and doesn’t follow his own rules. – Salon

Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center is planning to expand. But more than just a $50 million addition, museum leaders see the the project as an opportunity to “reshape the center as a populist gathering place where myriad art forms intersect in new ways,” have “the potential to alter the art center’s relationship to its neighborhood and downtown Minneapolis, and to become an international model for how contemporary art is housed and valued, integrated and presented.” – The Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

London’s Tate Museum is about to split itself up in a long-overdue expansion. The moves bring questions about art and national identity. – The Sunday Times (UK)

When LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art hired a new director last year, many were skeptical. High on art-world credentials, Jeremy Strick lacked administrative and fund-raising experience. Eight months into the job, Strick has placated the skeptics. – Los Angeles Times

— famous reproduction of Canadian Confederation painting. – CBC