Friday, 28th November 2008
5:53pm
LA MOCA
The Geffen Contemporary Space in Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Arts, Little Tokyo, hosted 450 art fans as well as some of LA's most prominent artists, this week. The massive turn out was in aid of a rally organised in aid of MOCA which, according to recent reports, is experiencing serious financial problems. The popularity of the event, despite it only raising $4,000 dollars, is hoped to bode well for future support of MOCA.
UAE: Cultural Hot Spot
The UAE’s plans for its first Pavillion at the 53rd Venice Biennale,in June 2009 were announced...
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Thursday, 27th November 2008
5:06pm
On 22 November the Emir of Qatar opened Doha’s Museum of Islamic Art. Michael Hall attended this much-anticipated event.
No sooner had the Emir of Qatar unveiled the plaque that marked the official opening of the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha than the sky over the museum exploded in a spectacular firework display. Some Qataris in the opening party told me that they were delighted that it was not more spectacular: ‘we don’t want comparisons with Dubai’. Only two days before, the Atlantis Hotel in Dubai had opened amid scenes of near-Bacchanalian extravagance. That is not the Qatari way....
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Thursday, 20th November 2008
4:11pm
The death of Jan Krugier on 15 November (aged 80) marked the passing of one of the art world’s notorious figures. As an art dealer and collector, his international reputation derived not simply from his discerning eye but also from his advisory relationship to members of the Picasso family that began shortly after Pablo Picasso’s death in 1973.
Krugier had originally hoped to be an artist himself, a plan he relinquished after discouragement from his friends Matisse and Giacometti, the latter suggesting he consider becoming a dealer instead. He went into business with his second wife, Marie-Anne Poniatowska, managing to...
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Friday, 14th November 2008
6:06pm
British artists lobby government to help save Titian paintings
Tracey Emin delivered a petition to No. 10 Dowing Street this week as part of the campaign to save Titian's Diana and Actaeon for the nation. Lucian Freud, Damien Hirst and David Hockney were among the artists who signed the petition. The deadline for the fundraising campaign is 31 December by which time the National Galleries in London and Edinburgh need confirm their ability to raise £50 million in order to secure the painting from the Duke of Sutherland who has offered the work to the nation, and its pendant...
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Thursday, 13th November 2008
3:04pm
In May, newspaper headlines were made by the sale to Russian billionaire Roman Abramovitch of Lucian Freud’s Benefits Supervisor Sleeping and Francis Bacon’s Triptych for a combined £60m. The results of the spring season sales generally reassured the industry that it did not appear to be experiencing the ill-effects of global financial woes.
Almost six months later and it is recent sales (or not) of works by Bacon and Freud that are prompting fears of a gloomier outlook. In London, on 29 October, a Freud portrait – of his friend Francis Bacon, in fact – sold for £5.4m but...
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The Lower East Side, once home to immigrants and aspiring artists, is no receiving the uptown treatment.
The National Trust's plans to acquire Seaton Delaval Hall are a tribute to a genius who has inspired writers and artists for centuries.
The Fitzwilliam Museum is celebrating the centenary of the directorship of Sydney Carlyle Cockerell with an exhibition that makes clear that he was in many ways the first modern museum director.
