A new museum show in Los Angeles is drawing some unexpected parallels between the worlds of architecture and high fashion. The exhibit “starts with the unexceptional premise that fashion and architecture are, if not equals, cognates—related languages with a common root. They both translate a two-dimensional pattern of abstract shapes into a seamed, three-dimensional volume.”
Tag: 11.27.06
The Great Northern Spirit
It sometimes seems as if all the great British artists come from (or at least have some connection to) the northern part of the country, which is somewhat surprising, since London, the great UK art capital, is in the south. “What is it about the North that gets everyone painting, sewing or puddling about in clay before carving chunks out of marble or timber? Time was when you could blame unemployment or even the rainy weather keeping people indoors, but neither of those seem convincing reasons any more.”
It’s Not How Much You Spend, It’s What You Spend It On
Much is being made of the disparity in acquisition budgets between UK museums and those in continental Europe and the U.S. But some in the UK arts world say that what’s of greater concern than the raw budget numbers is the value system used to judge which art is worth acquiring. “Is an Italian painting that was obtained by a British milord in the 19th century an integral part of ‘British heritage’? It is part of the history of British collecting, but that is not the same thing.”
Is This The Golden Age of Museumgoing?
Museum attendance is booming across the U.S., and while not everyone agrees on just why the public is suddenly so taken with art, museums are doing their best to make sure the ride doesn’t end anytime soon. From new or renovated buildings to the scrapping of admission fees, museums “have emerged as the pre-eminent cultural institution, a means of shaping the identity of a city.”
So Much For Cooperation
Lee Rosenbaum says that the war of words between the Getty Museum and the Italian government is evidence that “a cautiously cooperative relationship has degenerated into an adversarial one. It now appears that that the objects that the Getty had hoped to return in exchange for a far-reaching accord, including loans of Italian antiquities, may instead be used as courtroom evidence against the Getty’s former curator, Marion True, now on trial in Italy on charges of trafficking in illegally excavated antiquities.”
No Turkey Hangover On Broadway
It was a dynamite Thanksgiving weekend for Broadway, as several shows saw record ticket sales. “‘Wicked’ took in a mammoth $1.7 million, a new all-time Broadway record… Another record was set at the August Wilson Theatre where ‘Jersey Boys,’ the Four Seasons musical, grossed $1.18 million.”
GSA Reverses Course
“In a move likely to upset traditionalists, cheer modernists and widen the gulf between them, the U.S. General Services Administration has bypassed classicist Thomas Gordon Smith for its influential chief architect post and instead has chosen Les Shepherd, a veteran architect at the agency… Controversy erupted in September after The Wall Street Journal reported that Smith [was] set to become the agency’s chief architect. Some modernists charged that Smith’s devotion to traditionalism would set back the GSA’s progress in improving federal design. Some traditionalists cheered the prospect of a return to the nation’s classical design past.”
Art Or Exploitation?
The always-charged debate over child nudity in art is flaring again in Canada, thanks to an editorial decision by a photography magazine to remove several potentially controversial images from its latest issue focusing on what constitutes exploitative child porn. “The decision came after a time-consuming search failed to turn up a printer willing to risk a test of the Child Pornography Act passed in July, 2005. The debate over the images also resulted in the resignations of four members of BlackFlash’s volunteer board of directors.”
Seeing Ancient Athens In A New Light
“An ambitious international project to decipher 1,000-year-old moldy pages is yielding new clues about ancient Greece as seen through the eyes of Hyperides, an important Athenian orator and politician from the fourth century B.C. What is slowly coming to light, scholars say, represents the most significant discovery of Hyperides text since 1891, illuminating some fascinating, time-shrouded insights into Athenian law and social history.”
Celebrating Liverpool, Or Just Arguing About It
“The aim is certainly ambitious: to create a museum, unlike any other in the world, to celebrate the rich heritage of Liverpool. From prehistory to its days as a hub of the British empire, to the Beatles and Alan Bleasdale. But the £65m project to capture the city’s ‘creativity, its wit, its imagination, its sheer contrariness’ is already dividing opinion in Merseyside.”