January 5, 2009
It's hard to talk about museums these days without discussing the effect the recession is having on them. Funding of all kinds is being cut, and many museums are laying off staff, postponing exhibitions and looking for new ways to raise money. When it was first founded in 1972, the Queens Museum of Art was funded entirely by the city. But today, the museum gets most of its money from corporate and private donors.
Listen Now NPR
A painting by Titian has sparked a political row after the Scottish Government confirmed it had pledged a 'significant sum' towards its purchase. It followed newspaper reports that the government was contributing £17.5m towards acquiring the work of art. ... But Glasgow MP, Ian Davidson, questioned the logic of spending such large sums during an economic downturn.
BBC
Daniel Libeskind has proposed a tower next to Manhattan's Madison Square with huge multifloor gashes hacked out of its tubular form. Were it to be built, it would be a crude and unavoidable reminder of the horrors of 9/11. Is it Daniel's revenge? After all, he has dutifully defended the master plan at the World Trade Center as his vision was turned into a dour, money-sucking melange. For his pains, he was never asked to do a building at the site.
Bloomberg
Like the shepherds, the color print has nearly vanished. Today, you get some glossies sent out as holiday cards, and some lucky ones get matted and framed, yet the vast majority of color photographs now taken - and there are countless millions of them - pass before us, just briefly, on a screen.
Boston Globe
The art market is often described as the last unregulated financial market in the world. It has remained stubbornly resistant to almost all efforts to bring transparency to its operations, which still mainly function on the basis of highly personal relations and often secretive transactions.
Financial Times
More than 30 works, worth about €180,000, were taken from the Fasanengalerie in central Berlin over the New Year's holiday. "The etchings, prints and sculptures included Profil au fond noir, a 1947 work by Picasso; Nude in a rocking chair, a Matisse print from 1913; and Le Boupeut, a 1962 color print by Georges Braque.
Yahoo!
Recession Could Be Good For Design
Few of the arts benefited from the late economic boom more than design. After all, when the wealth is flowing, people don't covet the concerts you see or the books you read. They covet the couch you bought, and then they buy a cooler one. In the recent giddy years, signature architects and designers came to be known by their first names -- Rem, Philippe, Zaha -- and they were photographed as prolifically as Bono in new design hotbeds like Miami and Dubai.
New York Times
Times Of London Names British Museum Director 'Briton Of The Year
Neil MacGregor is far more than just the highly successful administrator of an iconic national establishment. He is a committed idealist who, in a world in which culture is increasingly presented as the acceptable face of politics, has pioneered a broader, more open, more peaceable way forward.
The Times
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