GAteshead’s Baltic gallery opened in 2002 with great fanfare and high hopes. But “the Baltic has become the safely provincial test bed of the wannabe cutting-edgers. You know the kind of thing: formulaic novelty and predictable, in-your-face transgression, not to mention those darkened rooms containing videos that render visitors comatose. Fair enough, Bill Viola is a master, but how about the others? If the Baltic’s programme of institutional avant-gardism has been underwhelming, its managerial record has been abysmal.”
Tag: 09.13.05
Philly Calder Museum Dies
A planned Alexander Calder museum in Philadelphia has died. “Both the state and the proposed museum’s major financial backer have withdrawn their support for the project. The proposed museum was to have been a permanent home for about 100 artworks, mostly those of Alexander (Sandy) Calder, a Philadelphia-area born sculptor famous for whimsical mobiles and steel sculptures.”
How A Hurricane Will Change Art?
New Orleans artists talk about what they lost and how Katrina will change their work. “The imagery has to change; it’s inevitable. I was always interested in the street life, the poor and what is at the root of that lifestyle. Now my concern is that New Orleans will become a middle-class city. The whole landscape of American art is in the process of upheaval. Between 9/11 and Katrina, I am seeing artists dealing with history. When I was at school we were concerned primarily with form. Now that’s all changed.”