WHEN MARY SUED SALLE

In January New York art dealer Mary Boone signed David Salle to her stable. Now she’s suing him for $1 million. Evidently “Boone promised to advance Salle $500,000, in return for which he would consign work worth at least $850,000 to her gallery. She’d pay all the promotional costs, and they’d split the sales, 60-40 in his favor.” Boone says Salle failed to deliver on the promised work. – New York Daily News

ART BY ANY OTHER NAME

Why must the cards labeling works of art be so vacuous? “Now, though, even the most venerable institutions have succumbed to the pull of populism: exhibitions have been dumbed down. And for this, I blame the curators and the catalogues and wall labels they provide. It is not the artists chosen that are at fault but rather the commentaries on them and quality of information supplied in the galleries.” – The Telegraph (UK)

THE BREAK BETWEEN ARCHITECTS AND THE REAL WORLD

Los Angeles is booming. But architects aren’t smiling. “The reason is that once again the profession’s creative elite has been relegated to the sidelines, designing scattered landmark residences while the majority of new housing remains in the hands of corporate developers. The break between the worlds of first-rate architecture and conventional home building – never close in the first place – is now a chasm.” – Los Angeles Times

NEW IRISH ARCHITECTURE

Ireland didn’t produce much in the way of decent architecture in the 1980s. Most of the large civic projects were roads and bridges. “Disengaged from the infrastructural process, architects felt envious and threatened. One prominent architect nominated for an award remarked that he would hate his building to be ‘beaten by a runway’ at Dublin airport.” Now some new signs of life. – The Sunday Times (UK)