2009.08.12

International News Digest

Danish Gallery Exhibits Controversial Muhammad Caricature; Neo Rauch: Professor No Longer; UNESCO Recognizes “Baltic Way” from 1989; Rising Market for Christian Relics; Egyptian Bust Gets a New Set of Fans;

GALLERY EXHIBITS CONTROVERSIAL MUHAMMAD CARICATURE

A Danish gallery has decided to exhibit a caricature of Muhammad that unleashed a wave of protests in the Muslim world against Denmark in 2006. Citing an article in magazine Sappho, Agence France-Presse reports that the controversial caricature will be part of a larger exhibition dedicated to the watercolor works of the artist-caricaturist Kurt Westergaard at the Galleri Draupner in Skanderborg. The caricature—one of twelve satiric drawings published in the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten—represents Muhammad wearing a turban in the shape of a

2009.08.06

International News Digest

EU Commission Discusses Lightbulb Art “Ban”; New Components of FIAC and Art Paris; Vienna Collection Goes Online; Controversial Bible Work Placed Under Glass; Angel Genitals Covered; British Artist Sells off his Possessions …

EU COMMISSION REACTS TO LIGHTBULB ART “BAN”

A press representative for the EU energy commission has reacted to the Süddeutsche Zeitung’s recent article on how the upcoming EU ban on incandescent lightbulbs will push artworks that use the traditional lightbulbs into extinction, from Laszlo Moholy-Nagy’s Light-Space-Modulator, 1922¬–1930, to Felix Gonzalez–Torres’s Untitled (For Stockholm), 1992. According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the EU press representative Ferran Tarradellas was “astonished” to learn that the energy commission’s decision would endanger artistic creativity and the exhibition

2009.07.28

International News Digest

National Gallery via iPhone and iTouch?; Flashmob for Michael Jackson at the Pompidou; Finnish Artist Gives Away Installation; Exhibition Canceled Due to Lack of Funds; Lights Out for Lightbulb Artworks?

NATIONAL GALLERY VIA IPHONE AND ITOUCH?

London's National Gallery is moving one step closer to virtual visits. As Agence France-Presse reports, the museum made an application to put 250 works from its permanent collection on iPhone and iTouch. Described as a first in the museum world, the move would create a virtual tour with both audio and video commentary for the works. Dubbed "Love Art," the tour would be organized thematically throughout twelve of the museum's galleries. Visitors turned into users would be able to admire the best of the permanent collection, including works by Leonardo,

2009.07.21

International News Digest

An Astronaut Paints from Experience; Louis Vuitton Shifts Focus to Space; Stelarc’s Cyborg Body; Weserburg Museum Collection to Münster’s Picasso-Museum.

PAINTING MEN ON THE MOON

Is there life after flying to the moon? To mark the fortieth anniversary of the first moon landing, Agence France-Presse reports on the unique career of the former astronaut Alan Bean. The seventy-seven year-old Bean, the fourth man to walk on the moon, quit NASA to follow his passion for painting, in particular, painting men on the moon. Bean’s works, which sell for up to two hundred thousand dollars, are inspired by his own experience on Apollo 12 in November 1969 as well as in a mission with Skylab in 1973, when Bean spent fifty-nine days in space. But Bean also

2009.07.13

International News Digest

Jean Nouvel’s Project Chosen for Île Seguin; Photographers Protest for Copyright; Prize for Tillmans; Palestinian Exhibition at Israeli Museum; Guggenheim Acquires New Video Work; Super Art Market.

JEAN NOUVEL’S PROJECT CHOSEN FOR ÎLE SEGUIN

The French architect Jean Nouvel’s project was chosen last week for the redevelopment of Île Seguin. According to a report from Agence France-Presse, the mayor of Boulogne-Billancourt made the announcement about the project on the twenty-seven-acre island, which was the site of a Renault car factory until 1992. Nouvel’s proposal was chosen from six and will be realized through a collaboration between public and private investors. The development envisions a “musical pole,” which will be managed by the local government, and a “contemporary art pole,”

2009.07.06

International News Digest

New Director for Quai Branly; Fontainebleau as a Historical Museum; New Art Academies for Cologne and Istanbul?; Two Art Fairs Rescheduled; Orhan Pamuk Reviews the 2009 Venice Biennale.

NEW DIRECTOR FOR QUAI BRANLY MUSEUM

Karim Mouttalib has been named the new general director for Paris’s ethnographic museum on the Seine, Le Musée des Arts Premiers du Quai Branly (the Museum of First Arts at the Branly Quay). As Agence France-Presse reports, the thirty-nine-year-old Mouttalib—a referendary counselor at the French Court of Auditors—has been acting as an adjunct delegated general director at the museum since April 2008. He replaces Pierre Hanotaux, who was recently selected by the new French minister of culture, Frédéric Mitterrand, to be the cabinet director at the Ministry

2009.07.02

International News Digest

Troubles at Berlin's Kunsthalle; Kunsthalle's Future?; Prizes for Richter and Renata Lucas; Additions and Removals to Unesco's World Heritage List.

TROUBLES AT BERLIN'S KUNSTHALLE

The Artistic Advisory Board of the Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin (Temporary Kunsthalle Berlin) has resigned, just before the program for the coming season was going to be announced. As Der Standard reports, the board was disappointed with the way the original concept for the Kunsthalle has been developed by those in charge of the temporary institution. The board—active since 2007—includes members Katja Blomberg (from Berlin's Haus am Waldsee), Julian Heynen (from Dusseldorf's K21), Dirk Luckow (from Kiel's Kunsthalle), and Gerald Matt (from Vienna's Kunsthalle).

2009.06.25

International News Digest

French Legal Saga for “Presumed Innocent” Curators Continues; Performance-Dining on the Roof of the Palais; Raising Funds for Debord; Swastika Sculpture: Critique or Provocation?; Munich Art Fair Canceled; Youths Defend Drinking in Vienna’s Museumsquartier; Yael Bartana’s Kibbutz in Warsaw.

CURATOR COURT CASE TO TAKE PLACE

When curators Marie-Laure Bernadac and Stéphanie Moisdon organized the exhibition “Présumés Innocents: L’Art Contemporain Et L’Enfance” (Presumed Innocent: Contemporary Art and Childhood) at Bordeaux’s Centre d’Art Plastique Contemporain in 2000, they likely did not imagine becoming part of a legal case that would last close to a decade. After the opening, the children’s protection agency Association La Mouette filed a legal complaint that the exhibition included child pornography, among other alleged offenses. Bernadac and Moisdon were then called upon to

2009.06.17

International News Digest

Another Prize for Rehberger; Dirk Luckow to Head Hamburg’s Deichtorhallen; Hermitage Opens in Amsterdam; “100 Genitals” Exhibited in Belgium; Expensive Kiss; Moscow Curators on Trial.

ANOTHER PRIZE FOR REHBERGER

After winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale, Tobias Rehberger is enjoying yet another honor closer to home. As the Süddeutsche Zeitung and Der Standard report, the forty-three-year-old German sculptor is the very first recipient of the new Hector art prize from the Mannheim Kunsthalle. While the prize comes with approximately forty-one thousand dollars, about thirty-five thousand is allotted to the acquisition of works by the artist for the kunsthalle's collection. The jury praised the “opulent work made of conceptual objects” by Rehberger, who is both an

2009.06.10

International News Digest

Weighing in on the Venice Biennale, with Reviews from Le Monde, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, and La Repubblica; Pirates in Venice.

WEIGHING IN ON THE VENICE BIENNALE

In European newspapers, critics have returned with a chorus of differing opinions in their reviews of the fifty-third Venice Biennale, from the central exhibition “Making Worlds” to the offerings at the national pavilions and various off-site shows. The Süddeutsche Zeitung’s Kia Vahland notes the focus on “making” in “Making Worlds.” While describing process-oriented works by different artist generations, Vahland seems to welcome the relatively minor role played by wall texts, despite the neo-Conceptual slant of many interventions. “Instead of chitchat:

2009.06.01

International News Digest

Racial-Discrimination Complaint Filed Against French Museums; No Photos Allowed at New Hergé Foundation; Artworks in Quarantine; Kunstkompass Unveils List of Top 100 Artists; Picasso Grandson Buys Building in Berlin.

RACIAL-DISCRIMINATION COMPLAINT FILED AGAINST FRENCH MUSEUMS

The French organization SOS-Racisme (SOS-Racism) has filed a complaint in a Paris court against alleged acts of discrimination in eighteen French museums, including the Louvre. As Le Monde’s Nathaniel Herzberg reports, the story begins with the recent free entrance policy, which was introduced by the ministry of culture in April to benefit younger museum visitors, aged eighteen to twenty-five years old. But SOS-Racisme sees a problem in the restriction of the policy to citizens of EU member-states only. All non-EU nationals, including

2009.05.27

International News Digest

Tati and Chanel Get to Smoke in the Paris Métro; Magritte Museum in Brussels; Orhan Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence; Siberian Artist Arrested …

TATI AND CHANEL GET TO SMOKE IN THE PARIS MÉTRO

Two censored advertising posters—one featuring the French filmmaker Jacques Tati smoking a pipe and another featuring an actress playing the French designer Coco Chanel smoking a cigarette—will be allowed to be displayed in their original versions in the Paris public-transportation system. As Le Monde and Agence France-Presse report, last month both posters went afoul of Metrobus, which manages advertising in the public-transportation system and which bans advertisements that portray smoking in accordance with the national “Evin Law.” But now a

2009.05.19

International News Digest

Beuys Trees Cut; Bulgaria’s New Contemporary Art Museum; Architects Selected for Ile Seguin; Protests at the Rietveld Academy; Witte de With, De Appel, and Christie’s Join Forces; Estonian Artist Creates Ghost Statue

BEUYS TREES CUT

Two trees planted by Josef Beuys in Kassel have been cut down. As Der Standard reports, Beuys planted the trees as part of his 1982 Documenta contribution 7,000 Eichen—Stadtverwaldung statt Stadtverwaltung (7000 Oaks—City Forestation Instead of City Administration). The perpetrators have not been identified in the report, although the city calculated the damage at nearly $14,000. According to Der Standard, the felled trees were in fact lindens, which had grown, respectively, to almost 500 and 160 inches in a schoolyard in northern Kassel; both were cut down with an axe. 7,000

2009.05.14

International News Digest

JPMorgan Chase Lets Rijksmuseum Keep Artwork; Bulgaria’s Missing Museum; Salzburg Museum Named Europe’s 2009 Museum of the Year; Worms in the Uffizi and Bees at the Grand Palais; Tracey Emin Goes Conservative; Honorary Doctorate For Valie Export.

JPMORGAN CHASE LETS RIJKSMUSEUM KEEP ARTWORK

According to a report from Le Monde’s Jean-Pierre Stroobants, JPMorgan Chase will not follow through with its legal case to seize a Rijksmuseum masterpiece used as collateral for a loan to a Dutch businessman and art collector. In 2008, the Rijksmuseum purchased the landscape painting—a view of Amsterdam’s Herengracht, painted in 1672 by the Dutch artist Gerrit Berckheyde—from Louis Reijtenbach, who allegedly used the painting, among many others, as collateral for a fifty-million-dollar loan from JPMorgan Chase. When Reijtenbach failed to pay back

2009.05.05

International News Digest

Center Pompidou Expansion at Palais de Tokyo Thwarted; Sarkozy Envisions Arts “Hill”; Yilmaz Dziewior to Head Kunsthaus Bregenz; Julian Heymen to Head Hamburg’s Deichtorhallen; Berlin Prize Jury Named; “ABC”(Art Berlin Contemporary) Adds “DEF”; “Our Body” Loses Appeal Case; Pop Museum for Tokyo?

CENTRE POMPIDOU EXPANSION AT PALAIS DE TOKYO THWARTED

Paris’s Centre Pompidou will not be expanding into the unused spaces of the Palais de Toyko. As Le Monde’s Philippe Dagen and Michel Guerrin report on the latest chapter in the ongoing saga of the massive building, which is currently only partly occupied by the Palais de Tokyo—Site de Création Contemporaine. The Pompidou had its eye on the remaining ninety thousand square feet to create “an antenna” of the center dedicated to a broader spectrum of arts and to midcareer French artists. French minister of culture Christine Albanel requested

2009.04.29

International News Digest

A Second Bank Claims Dutch Painting in Rijksmuseum; “Our Body” Exhibition Closed Down in Paris; Tati And Chanel Censored; Prague Exhibition Suspended; Stockholm Academy to Test Ethics; Women Get a Glimpse of Mount Athos Treasures.

A SECOND BANK CLAIMS DUTCH PAINTING IN RIJKSMUSEUM

After facing one claim from JP Morgan Chase, the Rijksmuseum is facing yet another from the Dutch bank ABN Amro. As Agence France-Presse reports, the Rijksmuseum bought a Dutch baroque masterpiece in 2008 from a Dutch collector, who was identified by the AFP as Louis Reijtenbagh. Troubles began on April 1 when JP Morgan Chase made a legal move to claim the painting from the Rijksmuseum as collateral against the collector’s defaulted payment on a loan. ABN Amro is making a similar claim and has asked the Dutch courts to designate the true owner

2009.04.21

International News Digest

Mixed Outlook for Art in Las Vegas; French Poll Finds Youth Lack Interest in Arts; Jp Morgan Chase Claims Rijksmuseum Masterpiece; American Auctions Most Hit by The Crisis

MIXED OUTLOOK FOR ART IN LAS VEGAS

Las Vegas is now the only major American city without an art museum. As Agence France-Presse reports, the Las Vegas Art Museum, which opened fifty-nine years ago, has closed its doors due to “lack of interest” and a chronic lack of funds. Vegas has no shortage of museums per se, but these are dedicated to neon lights, slot machines, or cars—not to fine art.

“The population here reaches the two-million mark,” said Libby Lumpkin, the museum’s last director, “and there’s no museum.” Lumpkin gave up her job last January in the hope of saving the museum at least

2009.04.15

International News Digest

Painted Nudes? Not in Vietnam; Jesus in an Electric Chair? Tate on Itunes; Danish Culture: More International? Sharjah Versus Dubai

PAINTED NUDES? NOT IN VIETNAM

An exhibition of painted nudes has been prohibited in Vietnam. Citing the news service VietnamNet, Agence France-Presse reports that the Vietnamese authorities deemed Nguyen Kim Dinh’s twelve paintings of female nudes “inappropriate.” The department of culture, sports, and tourism in the city of Hué, which is located in the center of the communist country, stated that the works “did not fulfill artistic criteria and are not adapted to the habits and the customs of Vietnam.” The department refused to give a statement to AFP; the artist could not be contacted to

2009.04.06

International News Digest

Phillips de Pury Closes Cologne Branch; A Museum of Saddam’s Possessions?Painting in Action; Berlin Public Painting on Hold; Goldin Auctions off Collection in Paris, Honored in Arles

PHILLIPS DE PURY CLOSES COLOGNE BRANCH

Phillips de Pury has closed its Cologne branch. As the Süddeutsche Zeitung’s Stefan Koldehoff reports, the auction house only opened the branch one year ago. Koldehoff writes that the closure—as well as the three employees working under Gérard A. Goodrow who have been laid off—has gone “unnoticed” in the press. Concentrating on contemporary art, Phillips de Pury has been known to send trend-scouts to galleries and ateliers while not shying away from purchasing auction-bound wares directly from artists. But the focus on contemporary art may have been a

2009.03.30

International News Digest

Papers Speculate on Cohen's Interest in Sotheby's; End of Secret Swiss Accounts Creating Market Boom?

PAPERS SPECULATE ON COHEN’S INTEREST IN SOTHEBY’S

Could the hedge-fund king and art collector Steve Cohen take over Sotheby’s? As the Süddeutsche Zeitung’s Jörg Häntzschel reports, Cohen has been picking up not only artworks but shares in the auction house. According to Häntzschel, some are beginning to speculate that Cohen may have his eye on taking over the auction house.

The link between Cohen and Sotheby’s arose at the beginning of March when Sotheby’s announced a forthcoming exhibition featuring twenty works from Cohen’s collection. “It’s already unusual that the shy Cohen exhibits his

Jennifer Allen