Tag: 06.28.00

PRINTING TICKETS AT HOME

A Carolina startup is offering customers the ability to buy their concert tickets online and print them at home. “The company provides its software for free to venues, allowing businesses to sell tickets online. Consumers are then able to immediately print their tickets after the purchase using any standard printer. Each ticket comes with its own 2D barcode.” – Wired

VOID AT THE TOP

Boston’s mayor Thomas Menino has announced big arts initiatives. But after 18 months, he still hasn’t appointed someone to head up his cultural department.  “It’s an absolute disgrace that that position has not been filled. The fact that there isn’t a strong (arts) leader you can go to and work with (in City Hall) is an outrage. The city is floundering around without the kind of arts leadership other cities have.” – Boston Herald

FALLING OUT OF FASHION

Tate Modern has already seen more than one million visitors since its opening six weeks ago. Meanwhile, at Tate Britain (dedicated to national British art) weekly totals have been plummeting since its April opening. Have audiences lost interest in anything other than contemporary art? Or are the curators at fault for putting together stodgy shows?” – The Guardian

THE GOOG DOES LAS VEGAS?

The Guggenheim Museum has been negotiating with Las Vegas’ Venetian Hotel to bring the Guggenheim’s most successful show ever to the Vegas Strip. “It’s not a display of Picassos but ‘The Art of the Motorcycle.’ Featuring more than 100 motorcycles, the exhibition debuted in New York two years ago and currently is parked at the Guggenheim’s acclaimed Frank Gehry-designed museum in Bilbao, Spain. – Los Angeles Times

MONUMENTAL CLEANUP

Rome spent two years sprucing up – scrubbed, repaired, or repainted monuments, villas, churches, and fountains, cleaning its buildings and monuments for an expected influx of tourists for the millennial year. All look more glorious than they have in several generations. Cleansed of soot and painstakingly restored to their 17th-century visage, the city’s baroque architectural masterpieces are at their best. But so far the expected rush of new visitors hasn’t appeared. – Boston Globe (Washington Post)

THE ENVY OF ITS PEERS

“London isn’t the only European city to have unveiled something big, dazzling and avant-garde this summer.” Munich’s Bavarian state gallery now has an astonishing collection of late-20th-century art, recently donated by a wealthy German couple. “In Munich, art-lovers are rubbing their eyes in disbelief. No fewer than 550 astonishing pieces have just been donated. A year ago Munich had virtually no notable avant-garde art. Now it has a collection that is the envy of Berlin, Paris and – yes, let’s be honest – even Tate Modern itself.” – The Times (UK)

AN ABORIGINAL ART BOOM —

— has been sweeping the Australian art market in recent years. On Monday, Sotheby’s in Melbourne set a new world auction record for an Aboriginal artist when a painting by Johnny Warangkula sold for nearly $½ million. “The rise of interest in Aboriginal art has been astonishing. In 1990, a mere $169,000 worth of Aboriginal art was sold at auction. By 1996, sales amounted to $1.36 million; within two years turnover exceeded $5 million.” – Sydney Morning Herald

BUT IT’S STILL BUST FOR SOME: Meanwhile, the 68-year-old artist – who was among those who pioneered the popular “dot painting” style nearly 30 years ago – was shocked to hear of the sale (as was his family, when they learned they had no legal claim to the proceeds). Warangkula sold the painting to an Alice Springs artist in 1972 for $150. Now the Aboriginal art group Desart is pressuring Sotheby’s and other art dealers to pass on some of the proceeds of these sales to Aboriginal artists. – Sydney Morning Herald