Sum of the Arts
In a survey of 150 US art museums, fraction of directors now aged over 60 = 1/3
Inspired by the Harper’s Index, Sum of the Arts is a periodic tabulation of numbers floating around the art world and beyond.
- Sheets of red paper held together by tension in British artist Steve Messam’s weight-bearing foot bridge = 20,000
- In a survey of 150 US art museums, fraction of directors now aged over 60 = 1/3
- Percentage of his net worth casino billionaire Steven Wynn bid on Picasso’s “Les Femmes d’Alger” in this week’s record-breaking auction (he didn’t win) = 3.7 (or $125 million)
- Yoshino cherry trees donated by the Japanese government in 1912 that grow along the Central Park Reservoir just outside the Guggenheim Museum = 35
- Years the first underwater tunnel in the world, which will open as a performance venue beneath the Brunel Museum in England, has been closed to the public = 150
- Square feet a 1955 Hans Hofmann mosaic covers with half a million tiles at 711 Third Avenue in Manhattan = 1,200
- Miles an 18-ton rock dug out of the Mojave Desert traveled for Michael Heizer’s exhibition at Gagosian Gallery in New York = 2,500
- Maximum number of daily visitors Italy’s culture ministry will allow in the historical site of Pompeii for its free Sundays = 15,000 (there were 35,000 on May 3)
- Award in American dollars the Gardner Museum in Boston just announced for the return of a 10-inch gilded eagle that was stolen in the infamous 1990 theft = 100,000
- Knots tied in the 100 miles of rope stretching over Boston as part of Janet Echelman’s public art installation = 500,000
