Alias Arts

Amongst all the excitement about new movements (see Ossian’s piece below) I find it hard to get my head out of the markets. To wit, there is a nice Konigsberg feature in the NYT Online this weekend about the Mugrabis and their buying styles. The title is slightly misleading (Is Anybody Buying …

It’s the dawn of a new age. No, not another, deeper stratum to the credit crunch, but a new era of art is upon us and it’s called the ‘Altermodern’. So says French curator Nicolas Bourriaud, who was also responsible for that other recent frisson of novel art-speak, Relational Aesthetics, …

What kind of an art world do you get without critics? To some, the question may sound hypothetical. But as I learned in Singapore last week, such scenarios exist, and may become more common.

In every tangible respect, the visual arts in Singapore are in an enviable situation. The small …

This in from Eva Diaz:

Following on the previous piece on museum directors, I was surprised–yet somehow not surprised– that the list didn’t mention artists, curation, or really much about museum content.  One would think that such a list of “improvements” to museums would include the requirement that museums strive to better their …

At the recent Association of Art Museum Directors conference, I read a 10-point “Recovery Plan” for museums. Several people asked for it after the conference, so here it is. Thoughts welcome.

1. Avoid rash moves that alienate private benefactors, who have been the bedrock of your support since the 19th …

Evolution, as it should be, is a growth industry.  We should be pleased with this.  And yet I find myself wary of some recent books and articles that are beginning to look at cultural production, and art more specifically, through the lens of evolutionary theory.  Here I’m thinking in particular of …

It may be safe to say that the news of the closing of the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis has brought the panic barometer up a notch in the museum world. While the Rose’s news is particularly shocking, parallel announcements are also dropping jaws: word came yesterday, for example, that …

It may be safe to say that the news of the closing of the Rose Art Museum has brought the panic barometer up a notch in the museum world. While the Rose’s news is particularly shocking, other parallel announcements are also dropping jaws: the word came yesterday that …

With The Minneapolis Star Tribune filing for bankruptcy protection yesterday, this is a good time to talk about what happens to the arts when newspapers go away.

I was talking to a friend who tracks journalism trends closely earlier this week and he said, “2009 is going to be a real …

Survival has replaced art fairs as the topic dealers discuss most when they meet in New York (how galleries are going to survive, or not, seems to be among the topics most on the minds of critics as well, as evidenced by recent offerings by Charlie Finch and Jerry Saltz …