AXA Art And Art Basel Continue And Expand Their Relationship
AXA Art, the world's leading fine art insurance specialist, announced that it has renewed and extended its partnership relationship with the international art shows, Art Basel and Art Basel Miami Beach. Under this expanded agreement, AXA Art will serve as Associate Sponsor, Exclusive Art Insurance Partner and Official Provider of VIP Guided Tours.
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Mamco Director To Curate Claude Levêque’s Exhibition At Venice Biennale 2009
Claude Levêque, who will represent France at the 2009 Venice Biennale, has chosen Christian Bernard, director of the Geneva Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Mamco), for curating his show at the French Pavilion. Christian Bernard (Strasbourg, 1950) is director of the Mamco. He conceived and applied the notion of this unusual museum which was inaugurated in 1994. From 1986 to 1994, Christian Bernard directed the Villa Arson in Nice. As curator of the French Pavillon, he wishes to relate Mamco to this new assignment.
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College Will Sell Tamayo Painting In Latin American Auction
The College has been clear about its intent to move forward with the sale of four paintings as part of its plan to strengthen the College's financial base, bring revenues and expenses more into line, and lower the endowment spending rate to a sustainable level. The College had expected to realize approximately $50 million from the sale of the paintings in November 2007, based on market conditions at the time. However, opponents secured a temporary injunction enjoining the sale. The injunction was lifted in February 2008 when the plaintiffs failed to post the full $1 million bond, and the plaintiffs filed a motion in March to withdraw their lawsuit in Lynchburg Circuit Court.
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David Rockefeller Gives US$100M For Harvard Undergraduate Programs
David Rockefeller, a member of the Harvard College Class of 1936 and longtime University benefactor, has pledged US$100 million to increase learning opportunities dramatically for Harvard undergraduates through international experiences and participation in the arts. Rockefeller's gift is the largest from an alumnus in Harvard's history.
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Linda McCartney Photographs First Major Exhibition In The UK
James Hyman and Paul McCartney are delighted to announce an exhibition of 28 platinum photographs by Linda McCartney. This is the first major exhibition of platinum prints by Linda McCartney to be presented in the UK. With the full support of Paul McCartney and his family, this exhibition is the result of a three-year collaboration with gallerist and art historian James Hyman.
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Editorial - The Art World Is Heading The Wrong Way
Our thousands of readers know we have never included an Editorial article in The MAG as we prefer to present news of your interest, but the latest disturbing news forced us to do so. What is happening lately in the Art World? We heard news about a German "artist" who is seeking a volunteer willing to die (literally) during his exhibition, a Costa Rican "artist" who starved to death a dog in a gallery and now will repeat the exhibition in a Biennial, and finally a Yale major student who inseminated herself several times and then aborted collecting her own blood for her project.
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Federal Judge Dismisses Charges Against NY Art Professor
A judge dismissed charges against the Buffalo University professor, Steven Kurtz, accused of illegally obtaining biological materials for an art exhibit protesting U.S. government food policies. Kurts is a founding member of the Critical Art Ensemble, which has used human DNA and other biological materials in works meant to draw attention to political and social issues.
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SAM Launches A New Contemporary Art Program
The Seattle Art Museum launched a new contemporary art exhibition program entitled SAM Next. The program present a series of three exhibitions each year introducing audiences to emerging or underappreciated artists working in the Northwest, around the United States and internationally.
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Short List For The Art Fund Prize Announced
Four museums have been selected for the next stage of The Art Fund Prize for museums and galleries. They will now compete for the £100,000 Prize, which is awarded for originality, imagination and excellence. The winner will be announced on 22 May at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London.
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Abortion Art Project By Yale Art Major Was Fake
Since yesterday, news about a very controversial and non-ethical exhibition were circulating everywhere. A Yale art major, Aliza Shvarts, will exhibit a nine month documentation of how she inseminated herself as often as possible, and then take abortion drugs to induce miscarriage. Fortunately, this news was only fiction, expressed firmly in an announcement from the Yale University Office of Public Affairs.
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Inventor Of Birth Control Pill Left Klee Collection To Albertina Museum
From 9 May to 10 August 2008 the Albertina will present a comprehensive Paul Klee retrospective. The starting point of the exhibition will be Carl Djerassi’s important gift to the Albertina of works by Paul Klee. Additional exhibits from the holdings of the Albertina, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and other international collections and museums will show this important collection in the context of the exceptional creativity of Paul Klee.
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Banksy And His Biggest Work Yet In London
A Banksy-style artwork appeared in the heart of London protests against Britain's surveillance society, feet away from a CCTV camera. This is the biggest work yet at London. The painting has the message: "One nation under CCTV" in white capital letters. The graffiti artist managed to erect three storeys of scaffolding behind a security fence despite being watched by a CCTV camera.
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Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States
New York collectors Dorothy and Herbert Vogel, with the help of the National Gallery of Art, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, are launching a national gift program entitled "The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States". It will distribute 2,500 works from the Vogels' collection of contemporary art throughout the nation, with fifty works going to a selected art institution in each of the fifty states.
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Stolen Art Saved By The Art Fund
Ten years after an attempt to steal a collection of paintings worth over £500,000 they have finally been returned to their rightful home, the National Galleries of Scotland, thanks to The Art Fund. The charity became suspicious following the owner Helen Guiterman’s death in 1998. She had decided to leave her collection of six oil paintings and 51 watercolours and drawings by the Scottish Victorian painter David Roberts to The Art Fund in her will, but they never materialised.
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Las Vegas Guggenheim-Hermitage Museum To Close In May
Thomas Krens, Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director of the State Hermitage Museum, and Robert G. Goldstein, President of the Venetian and The Palazzo, announced that the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum will conclude its seven-year tenure at The Venetian Resort-Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas on May 11, 2008. The museum, which is currently presenting Modern Masters from the Guggenheim Collection, will be open free of charge in celebration of the seven-year partnership from April 11 to May 11, 2008. During this period, the public will be able to enjoy free admission to the gallery.
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Mississippi And Louisiana Museums Receive Hurricane Relief Awards
Eleven museums in Mississippi and Louisiana will receive Hurricane Relief Awards totaling $225,000 to assist in their continuing recovery from Hurricane Katrina, announced Anne-Imelda Radice, Director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) on April 9, 2008. IMLS made the awards in partnership with the Atlanta-based Southeastern Museums Conference (SEMC). The awards cover museum operations such as creating new materials to attract visitors, collections management, supplies and equipment, conservation of damaged objects, educational programming and archival storage needs.
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The Board nominates Daniel Birnbaum as Director
The Board of Directors of the Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta, held a meeting on 7th April 2008 in which it nominated Daniel Birnbaum as Director of the Visual Arts Sector, with specific responsibility as curator of the 53rd International Art Exhibition, to be held in 2009.
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David Hockney Gives His Largest Ever Work To Tate
David Hockney has gifted "Bigger Trees near Warter" 2007 to Tate. The oil painting, his largest ever, was made on fifty canvas panels and was executed outside, en plein air. Measuring 4.6 x 12.2 metres (15x 40 feet), its subject is a typical Yorkshire landscape, west of Bridlington. The work was first exhibited in 2007 at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. David Hockney has also presented Tate with two digital photographic renderings of the painting on paper sheets in the same dimensions as the oil.
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Jean Nouvel Of France Is Named 2008 Pritzker Laureate
Jean Nouvel of Paris, France has been chosen as the 2008 Laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize. The formal ceremony for what has come to be known throughout the world as architecture’s highest honor was held on June 2 in Washington, D.C. at the Library of Congress. A $100,000 grant and a bronze medallion will be bestowed on the 62-year old architect.
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Grand Rapids Art Museum Repatriates Saint Eustace Panels To Italy
The Grand Rapids Art Museum announced that the Museum is returning two Italian panel paintings stolen from the Church of Saint Eustace in Campo di Giove, Abruzzo, Italy in 1902. The museum acquired the panels in 1947 without knowledge they had been stolen. The two panels formed part of a sixteen-panel altarpiece that enclosed an effigy of the saint. They were painted by the Abruzzese Master of Castelvecchio Subequo, who was active in the region in the late 14th century.
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France Offer Loans To Art Buyers
The French Government will offer interest-free loans to people who would like to purchase artworks. Loans will be woth up to 10,000 euros (US$15,000) according to French Culture Minister Christine Albanel. This idea is mainly to help young artists. The banks providing the loans will be compensated through tax breaks for corporate art patronage. Small businesses will be given greater tax incentives to buy artworks and auction houses will be modernised.
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Stolen Indigenous Artworks Recovered
A total of seven Indigenous artworks with an estimated value of at least $500,000 have been recovered from an early morning break-in at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT). MAGNT Director Anna Malgorzewicz said Northern Territory Police recovered the artworks stashed in bushes near the Darwin Bowls and Social Club, several hundred metres from MAGNT.
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