“Spanish art collector Baroness Carmen Thyssen threatened yesterday to chain herself to a tree on Madrid’s most emblematic street, the Paseo del Prado, to stop proposed building works outside a museum of valuable paintings donated by her family. The baroness said a redesign of the street, planned to keep traffic away from the nearby Prado museum, would leave her own museum choking in exhaust fumes.”
Tag: 04.25.06
The Man Who Brought Beauty To Britain’s Modern Landscape
Civic engineering is a vital part of urban life, but rarely does it provide us with a glimpse at pure beauty. “Isambard Kingdom Brunel, whose bicentenary we celebrate this month, changed the face of Britain. A restless polymath, he imbued the kingdom with gloriously ambitious railways, sensational steamships, revolutionary bridges and a new industrial-era architecture… His monuments are all around us – and they are as dramatic and useful today as they were in their Victorian heyday.”
Should Museums Try To “Fix” Their Mostly-Male Collections?
One of Sweden’s more prominent museums has requested a special government grant of $6.6 million to purchase 20th century works exclusively by female artists. Officials at Moderna Museet say that the grant would help it “redress the gender imbalance in its collection.” But are such “positive discrimination” plans really serving the best interest of art?
The Case For Holding Onto Stolen Antiquities
Increasingly, the international debate over the ownership of antiquities which may once have been procured in less than honest fashion seems to be swinging around to a “give everything back if they ask for it” consensus. But the British Museum’s steadfast refusal to hand over the Elgin Marbles that once belonged to Greece has stood out as a notable example of an institution claiming a higher right to an artifact. “In many instances, national treasures are better off outside their countries of origin – better cared for, receiving more attention, and more accessible… It is one of the paradoxes of culture that museums confer as much as acknowledge beauty.”
The Great Classical Dumb-Down Comes To Oz
In Australia, some devotees of classical music are worried that some of the world’s greatest art is being reduced to the level of a pop song, and that those intending to broaden the audience are, in fact, insulting its intelligence. “To be sure, classical music needs to reach out to new audiences if it is to survive in this country… But we are not going the right way about fixing the problem. Instead, we are dumbing down classical music through the constant release of ‘best of’ CD compilations and with programming that replaces quality with quantity. The main culprit is none other than the traditional champion of classical music in this country, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.”