Category: visual

Remember That Big Golden Sculpture Hanging In The Lobby Of The New York Philharmonic’s Hall? It’s Gone, And Lincoln Center Says It Won’t Be Back

The abstract artwork, titled Orpheus and Apollo and created by sculptor Richard Lippold specially for Philharmonic Avery Fisher David Geffen Hall when it opened in 1962, was taken down for “maintenance and conservation” in 2014, something that all too few people had noticed. Now Lincoln Center and the Philharmonic have indicated that, when the venue’s reconstruction is completed in 2024, the hanging sculpture won’t be reinstalled “because of current safety standards that impact the wiring.” – Gothamist

Galleries And Museums Are So Crowded Now The Experience Is… Not Artistic

Venture to many blockbuster exhibitions, particularly on a weekend, and you’ll often be met with overwhelming crowds. Is there a surfeit of public interest in art? Are galleries packing in the crowds to maximise profit? And how best to meet the growing demand for public art without turning museums into amusement parks, complete with heavily managed queues? – The Guardian

Bravo To The Turner Prize For Declaring Four Winners

“The Turner has always been premised on there being a winner. The award garners publicity, feeds the bookies and, apparently, generates discussion. It is all, supposedly, good for the climate in which contemporary art gets talked about. But artists whose works and attitudes have nothing to do with one another are often pitted against one another for no good reason.” – The Guardian

What’s The Point Of The Turner Prize If Everyone Wins?

“While this gesture is charged by the passion of a particular moment, it has huge implications for the future. It places the Tate and subsequent Turner Prize artists and juries in an invidious position. How can they now continue as normal? If the Tate wants the prize to go on, does it install new rules stating that there can be only one victor? That rather undermines this year’s winners.” – London Evening Standard

You Get A Turner Prize And You Get A Turner Prize And You Get A Turner Prize And You Get A Turner Prize

The four nominees had appealed to the jury to consider awarding the prize to them as a collective due to their shared commitment to urgent social and political causes. “At this time of political crisis in Britain and much of the world, when there is already so much that divides and isolates people and communities, we feel strongly motivated to use the occasion of the prize to make a collective statement in the name of commonality, multiplicity, and solidarity—in art as in society.” – Artforum

Turkey’s Top Court Rules That 1,000-Year-Old Church-Turned-Mosque-Turned-Museum Must Be Turned Back Into Mosque (Could This Happen To Hagia Sophia?)

“The Church of St Savior in Chora, which was converted into the Kariye Mosque in the early 16th century by an Ottoman vizier, was designated a museum by the Turkish government in 1945. Its 14th-century frescos and mosaics are regarded among the world’s finest examples of Byzantine art. Turkey’s Council of State … ruled last month that the historic cabinet decision that made Kariye a museum was unlawful because a mosque ‘cannot be used except for its essential function’. … [President] Erdoğan vowed [during Istanbul’s municipal elections] in March to re-consecrate Hagia Sophia as a mosque.” – The Art Newspaper

And The 2019 Turner Prize Goes To — All Four Finalists Together

From the Booker Prize to the Bad Sex in Fiction Award, this seems to be the year of shared accolades in the UK. The judges of the Turner, Britain’s leading visual art prize, split the honors between Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Helen Cammock, Oscar Murillo and Tai Shani at their explicit request, made “in the name of commonality, multiplicity and solidarity – in art as in society.” – The Guardian

Russia And Syria Make Deal To Restore Ancient Palmyra, Damaged By ISIS

Among the long-term goals of the agreement are the Hermitage and the National Museum of Oman working together to restore 20 Syrian antiquities, primarily from Palmyra; an international campaign to restore Palmyra, seriously damaged by Isis; and the formation of an international expert group under the auspices of Unesco and DGAM, together with the Hermitage and Aga Khan Foundation. – The Art Newspaper