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This week marked a momentous event on art's international stage as the first spade hit the ground on the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the controversial $1 billion "universal museum" that will bring a wealth of France's art to the United Arab Emirates capital. Set to open by 2013, the gigantic domed complex--designed by Jean Nouvel as part of a larger cultural center on Saadiyat Island--is intended to bridge cultural barriers between the Western and Islamic worlds, and to celebrate the occasion the city put on a show of works including a Bellini "Madonna and Child," two Manets, and a Qi Dynasty Buddha head.
In the United States, meanwhile, President Obama engaged in a bit of cultural diplomacy closer to home by alerting art institutions, dealers, and collectors that the White House is looking to borrow works of modern art by Black, Asian, Hispanic, and female artists. The loans, which could significantly buoy the careers of the artists selected, would join works the Obamas have already borrowed by Jasper Johns, Richard Diebenkorn, Ed Ruscha, Glenn Ligon, and Josef Albers.
It was a good week for film and photography aficionados, as two proponents of the mediums got new leases on life. In New York, the Film-Maker's Cooperative--a 47-year-old organization founded by Jonas Mekas and other art-world cineasts to preserve and promote avant-garde movies--was given a new home by real-estate developer/film buff Charles S. Cohen, who offered them a five-year tenancy at $1 per year.(Last year the cooperative was evicted from its longtime space to make way for a new art-focused radio station.) Then, in Holland, a group of Dutch scientists calling themselves the "Impossible Project" have taken over an old Polaroid factory in an attempt to reinvent a new-and-improved version of the famous instant film, which went out of production last year to the dismay of its devoted fans.
In legal news, the heir of a Russian collector has stirred up a commotion at Yale by seeking the return of Van Gogh's "Night Cafe," claiming that the seminal painting had been confiscated from his great grandfather by Lenin. The university, which purchased the painting half a century ago, is defending its ownership as legitimate. Meanwhile, a New York judge has breathed life into a long-simmering lawsuit by ruling that a collector could pursue a case against the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in which he claims the organization uses its power to authenticate the Pop artist's works--a role of tremendous influence considering how many works Warhol mass-produced in his studio, from various degrees of remove--to perpetuate "antitrust conspiracy and fraud." Lastly a controversy has arisen in Italy over a sculpture of Christ on the Cross that has been attributed to Michelangelo. The government says it really is by the Renaissance master, but critics disagree and accuse the state of trying to exploit the attribution for propaganda ends. So that's this week--now on to Venice and Basel!
Related Links:
"Abu Dhabi Gets a Sampler of World Art" [via the New York Times]
"Changing the Art on the White House Walls" [via the Wall Street Journal]
"Avant-Garde Film Group Gets New Home, Cheap" [via the New York Times]
"Polaroid Lovers Try to Revive Its Instant Film" [via the New York Times]
"Pulp: A Fistful Of Polaroids" [via the New York Times]
"Russian Aristocrat's Heir Reclaims Van Gogh Painting 'Looted' by Lenin" [via the Telegraph]
"Warhol Collector Wins Right to Pursue Foundation Suit" [via Bloomberg]
"Controversy Over 'Michelangelo' Sculpture" [via the BBC]
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