Art Movements
Chicago's Field Museum's major budget cuts, the return of looted Chinese art, BMW pulls out of BMW Guggenheim Lab, a possible Michelangleo, Baltimore's the Contemporary planned to reopen, the St. Louis Art Museum's new expansion …
Art Movements is a weekly collection of news, developments, and stirrings in the art world.
Due to a debt of $170 million, the Field Museum in Chicago is continuing cuts to research staff, although their president Richard Lariviere stated that they expected to recover within two years. The financial crisis resulted from a $90 million bond project for expanded construction that wasn’t met with the capital campaign they expected and required them to cut into their endowment.
The cover art for Jay-Z’s new album, Magna Carta Holy Grail, which features a photograph by Ari Marcopoulos, went on display in Salisbury Cathedral next to the 1215 Magna Carta.
Two bronze animal heads looted from China in the 19th century were returned by François-Henri Pinault, chief executive of Kering, which owns Christie’s. The heads caused an uproar back in 2008 when they came up at auciton as part of the Yves Saint-Laurent sale.
Although it was planned to be a partnership through 2016, BMW dropped their support of the Guggenheim Museum’s BMW Guggenheim Lab, which launched in 2010 as a series of pop-up structures for forums on urban living.
As a component of the London Festival of Architecture, an installation by Leandro Erlich created the illusion of a house with mirrors like those that stood in the area before the WWII Blitz.
The Shem Art Museum designed by SO-IL being built at the University of California, Davis, will have a 50,000-square-foot “canopy” that allows in light to alter the space with the seasons.
Two thousand photographs by Annie Leibovitz were donated to the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.
A sculpture of a young John the Baptist that may have been made by Michelangelo lured researchers and art historians to Spain, where it is on display in the Holy Chapel of the Savior in Úbeda.
The Baltimore Contemporary Museum, renamed the Contemporary and with a roving exhibition focus, is set to reopen this fall 18 months after it was suddenly closed and its staff let go. Here’s Hyperallergic’s report on the closure from last May.
Patrick Cariou is expected to file an appeal of the ruling overturning his copyright infringement case against Richard Prince. Here’s Hyperallergic’s coverage of the ongoing dispute.
A group called Advocates for Justice is suing to try and stop the planned renovation of the main branch of the New York Public Library, which would remove the historic stacks.
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, acquired designer Manfred Heiting’s collection of around 25,000 photography books and other materials related on the history of photography.
A new building designed by David Chipperfield Architects was opened at the Saint Louis Art Museum, expanding the institution’s public space by 30% and adding 21 galleries. The construction comes alongside a renovation of the main building, designed by Cass Gilbert in 1904, and an installation by Andy Goldsworthy between the two buildings.
An artist at the 99 Commercial Street artist center in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, was conned out of $1,700 by a fraudelant buyer, who used a bad check to get money wired from the artist for a proposed art purchase.
