“Sheikh Saud Al Thani, cousin of the Emir of Qatar, is the world’s most active collector of art and the market’s biggest spender. For the past decade, Sheikh Saud has moved through the market like a whirlwind, collecting voraciously in a huge range of fields.” Now he’s building five museums.
Tag: 04.30.04
Rebuilding Iraq Museums
“The Iraq National Museum could be ready to open in a few months. Physically the building could be opened. The construction work is done. But we wouldn’t want to do that until the security contract for physical improvements and upgrades is done. It’s up to the Iraq Museum staff to decide when the security situation permits reopening, and how much time they want to put into installing the gallery. Saddam would say, ‘Have the galleries installed in one month for my birthday.’ Now they have time to think about the arrangement.”
Artists: We Struggled Under Saddam
What was it like to be an artist in Iraq during Saddam Hussein’s regime? “The situation for artists was not good. There was the prohibitive cost of materials and the problem of being blocked off from the outside world, Saddam stopped all government support for art facilities and was interested only in having thousands of portraits of himself made, for which artists were well paid. Although Iraqi art survived underground, State-sanctioned art in Iraq was dying and the galleries were full of works on sale to foreigners at cheap prices.”
Mies House Reopens In Illinois
“Four months after spending $7.5 million to buy the Farnsworth House and keep the icon of 20th Century modernism in Illinois, preservationists will open the house for tours Saturday, hoping the public will warm to the cool, steel-and-glass masterwork by architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The 53-year-old house, 58 miles southwest of Chicago, appeared to be in jeopardy until a last-minute surge of donations gave preservation groups the war chest they needed to purchase it on Dec. 12 at a Sotheby’s auction in New York. The groups had feared that a wealthy bidder might move the house out of state.”
Too Many Snips & Snails Put Asia’s Future At Risk
Most of the reasons for the preference in many Asian cultures for sons over daughters have long since passed into irrelevance, but “a strong preference for sons persists, enhanced by technology that increasingly allows parents to realize their desires. Amniocentesis and ultrasound can easily identify the sex of a fetus, and sex-selective abortion has become an everyday practice… Scholars and feminist organizations in both Asia and the West have produced many volumes of often conflicting advice about how to combat the practice. Now two political scientists have joined the fray with an ominous argument: Offspring sex selection could soon lead to war.”
State Of The Theater: LA Edition
It’s the best of times and the worst of times for the musical theater scene in Los Angeles. On the one hand, the quality of local productions is way up in recent years, and there seems to be no shortage of work for the area’s actors. But on the other hand, the cost of mounting such productions has gone through the roof, and there are even whispers that the business model may no longer be viable in the longer term. Still, in an era when many sectors of the American cultural scene are struggling to survive, L.A.’s theater crowd is learning to adjust to new realities.
Atlantis Discovered! (Again.) (Maybe.)
“A quest for the lost island of Atlantis began off the southern shores of Cyprus yesterday. After a decade of intense study an American, Robert Sarmast, claims to have assembled evidence to prove that the fabled island lies a mile deep in the sea between Cyprus and Syria… By August he hopes to have proved that Atlantis was not simply a figment of the imagination but a real empire with stone temples, bridges, canals and roads.” Of course, Sarmast is hardly the first to have claimed that the mythical island exists, and recent claims as to its whereabouts have spanned at least four continents.
Qatar’s Amazing Museum Plans
“Virtually nothing compares with the scale and ambition of the museums planned for Qatar’s capital Doha.” The capital is being remade, and five museums, designed by architectural heavyweights, are in the planning.
MoMA: Swapping Picassos For Hirsts?
The Museum of Modern Art is selling nine paintings and could raise $27 million from the sale. At the same time, “a London source close to the contemporary art market told The Art Newspaper that the museum is considering the purchase of the 13 Damien Hirsts now on show at Tate Britain in the exhibition “In-a-Gadda-da-Vida” (until 31 May). Could MoMA be trading its Picassos, Légers, and Pollocks for a flock of butterfly paintings and vitrines by Mr Hirst?”
How To You Preserve The Ephemeral? (Should You?)
There was a time when some artists, rejecting the whole art “scene”, strove to make art that couldn’t be captured, couldn’t be collected, couldn’t be bought and sold. That was then. “We do live in more conservative times, not just politically but culturally; hence the impulse toward conservation. More poignantly, artists want to be remembered when they’re gone. It’s easy if you’re Rembrandt, even though all things must eventually fade. But it’s not so easy if you’re a creator of youthfully defiant ephemeral art.”