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Story 5 designs selected for world class museum in Patna Faizan Ahmad (TNN), The Times of India, Dec 1, 2011, 10.08AM IST
PATNA – "Five architectural designs for the proposed international museum have been selected of which one will be finalized. The museum will come up on the Bailey Road on nearly 14 acres of land at an estimated cost of Rs 350 crore. For two days the five designs and concepts were presented before the members of the selection panel. These designs have come from the US, UK, Australia, Japan and Norway. In all, 24 architectural designs have come of which five were selected. Now all these five designs will be displayed at the Patna Museum for public viewing. "The final design will be selected by the state cabinet," HRD principal secretary Anjani Kumar Singh, who is also the nodal officer of the project, said on Wednesday. The selection panel, headed by chief secretary Navin Kumar, will submit its report to the state government. Singh said that the building construction department will take over the project once the design is finalized. The state government had floated a global tender for this project through a consultant, Lord Cultural Resources, and as many as 24 agencies of different countries showed interest by sending their designs."
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Cultural News, a free service of Lord Cultural Resources, is released at the end of every week by our Librarians: Brenda Taylor and Danielle Manning, with contributions from Ameline Coulombier and Camille Balmand of Lordculture and Lord Cultural Resources consultants Javier Jimenez and Veronica Blandon. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for the latest digest of cultural news. |
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Our Clients and Lord Cultural Resources in the News
Next Pathway's Clara Angotti recognized as one of Canada's most powerful women for 2011 Canada NewsWire, Digital Journal, Dec. 1, 2011
TORONTO – "Clara Angotti, President and Founder of Next Pathway Inc., has been named a recipient of the prestigious 2011 Canada's Most Powerful Women: Top 100TM Award by the Women's Executive Network. She received her award in the "Entrepreneur" category. The Women's Executive Network awards recognize the highest achieving female leaders in the private, public and not-for-profit sectors in Canada. Winners in the "Entrepreneur" category are selected based on their role in founding and growing a company, their strategic vision and leadership, their organization's financial performance and their commitment to community service. Her passion goes beyond the technology industry through her leadership roles on various community boards and charities. Clara and her husband are a Founding Patrons of Luminato, a Toronto-based, annual multi-disciplinary celebration of theatre, dance, music and more. "Clara was an early and vigorous supporter of Luminato and over the last 5 years has helped it become the most important multi arts festival in North America." said Tony Gagliano, Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of St. Joseph Communications and Co-Founder of Luminato."
Recent News, artdaily.org, 1 December 2011
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – "With 79 percent of the capital campaign goal raised two years ahead of the groundbreaking for the expansion of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the museum's Board of Trustees has approved visitor- and city-friendly enhancements to the original design program and, in turn, has raised the capital campaign goal to $555 million from $480 million, an increase of 15 percent. These additional funds will enable the museum to increase the number and types of spaces dedicated to education, public engagement, exhibitions, collections, and programs. Expanding strategically on the conceptual design announcement made in May 2011, SFMOMA today unveiled new design details including ground-level galleries and orientation spaces that will be free to the public and new educational spaces throughout the museum. The design also features new pedestrian pathways that lead to and through the museum from the surrounding streets, creating a nexus for the neighborhood. The expansion is designed by architectural firm Snøhetta in collaboration with SFMOMA; groundbreaking is scheduled for summer 2013, and completion is projected in early 2016."
New Utah museum leaps beyond old-school dioramas Paul Foy (Associated Press), Seattle Post Intelligencer, Updated 05:02 p.m., Tuesday, November 29, 2011
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH (AP) — "Museum-goers are taking in the sounds, smell and feel of ancient life and landscapes at a new $100 million building in Salt Lake City. The Natural History Museum of Utah engages the senses, allowing visitors to mingle inside exhibits, touch artifacts, get a whiff of desert plants or rotting flesh and hear the soft warbling of birds. People are even walking on top of exhibits, with glass-panel floors covering fossil dig sites. Over the years, they'll also be able to watch paleontologists separate fossils from rock in a glass-walled working laboratory. The museum, which opened Nov. 18, is located in the Rio Tinto Center on the University of Utah campus. The center's copper and stone exterior is designed to blend into the high foothills of the Wasatch Range, and it's named for the mining company that donated the copper — 100,000 pounds of it — for the outside panels. The center was also designed to meet specifications for top ratings from the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building systems, with features like a planted roof and parking tiers that percolate rainwater. Rooftop solar panels will satisfy a quarter of the building's energy demands."
The most culturally successful Abu Dhabi Art to date was without the Guggenheim this year Anna Somers Cocks, The Art Newspaper, 29 November 2011
ABU DHABI – "The Guggenheim is certainly not cancelled," the US ambassador, Michael Corbin, told me. "It’s just delayed due to cash flow problems and the Arab Spring" (see facing page). This was at an exhibition of Middle Eastern artists hosted in the residence to show his general support for the role that art is playing in Abu Dhabi policy. There were more signs of official approval for the idea of art. A huge red ball is appearing in surprising places, such as the Zaha Hadid-designed bridge, and in shopping malls. This is an installation by Kurt Perschke to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the founding of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Why the general feeling of uncertainty about the future for art in Abu Dhabi? Much of it can be put down to the chronic secrecy with which public affairs are conducted, fed by uncertainty about where the focus of power is at any moment. What is certain is that central government (that is, Abu Dhabi, the energy-richest emirate and the capital of the UAE) has been pouring money into the four, poor, northern emirates for infrastructure projects over the past year. This is an indirect response to the unrest in other countries in the region, which has not occurred in the UAE but has changed the priorities in the Executive Council, and led to the increased influence of Sheikh Hazza bin Zayed Al Nahyan, national security adviser and deputy chairman of the council, a relative conservative who believes that housing and hospitals come before museums. So how was last month’s Abu Dhabi Art, run by the Tourism Development & Investment Company (TDIC), which is responsible for a housing and tourism development that includes the future museums? As a cultural event, which is what Abu Dhabi Art aims to be, this looked like the most successful so far."
Pier 21 taking immigration exhibit across Canada Pat Lee, Chronicle Herald, 29 November 2011
CANADA – "The Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 plans to hit the road. The national museum has issued a tender to put together a travelling exhibit that will start off from Halifax in 2013, then cross the country for four years, ending up back in Halifax in 2017 to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the country. Marie Chapman, chief executive officer of Pier 21, said the ambitious project is in keeping with the museum’s expanded mandate to tell the stories of all new Canadians, not just the ones of those who arrived in Halifax via the south-end immigration shed. She said the mandate of the travelling exhibit will be two-fold. The plan will include a 1,600-square-foot movable exhibit about Canadian immigration from 1867 to present day."
Museum of Liverpool new galleries to open on Friday (VIDEO) Catherine Jones, Liverpool Echo, 29 November 2011
LIVERPOOL – "Final preparations are being made for the opening of the new galleries at the Museum of Liverpool this Friday. The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh will get a preview of the exhibits when they pay a visit to the waterfront landmark on Thursday, with the exhibits opening to the public 24 hours later. The first phase of the £72m museum opened in July. The new galleries include the Great Port, Overhead Railway, King’s Regiment, and a 38 metre (124ft) time traveller’s time line charting the history of the city."
Paris show unveils life in human zoo Sense of shock as exhibition reveals how people were displayed in freak shows in the 19th and early 20th centuries Angelique Chrisafis, The Guardian, Tuesday 29 November 2011 18.22 GMT
PARIS – "Half-naked Africans made to gnaw bones and presented as "cannibals" as they shivered in a mock tribal village in northern France; Native American children displayed at fairgrounds; families from Asia and the South Pacific behind railings in European zoos and dancing Zulus on the London stage. Paris's most talked-about exhibition of the winter opened on Tuesday with shock and soul-searching over the history of colonial subjects used in human zoos, circuses and stage shows, which flourished until as late as 1958. Human Zoos: The Invention of the Savage, curated by former French international footballer turned anti-racism campaigner Lilian Thuram, traces the history of a practice which started when Christopher Columbus displayed six "Indians" at the Spanish royal court in 1492 and went on to become a mass entertainment phenomenon in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Millions of spectators turned out to see "savages" in zoos, circuses, mock villages and freak shows from London to St Louis, Barcelona to Tokyo. These "human specimens", and "living museums" served both colonialist propaganda and scientific theories of so-called racial hierarchies. The exhibition at Paris's Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac's museum dedicated to once-colonised cultures – is the first to look at this international phenomenon as a whole." [See also Paris museum questions racism in human display, New Zealand Herald, 28 November 2011]
Toronto’s Power Plant gallery gets first woman director James Adams, The Globe and Mail, 29 November 2011
TORONTO – "For the first time in its 34-year history, the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto is appointing a woman as its director. The gallery announced Monday that Gaëtane Verna, currently director of the Musée d’art de Joliette, in Joliette, Que., would take on the high-profile post, culminating an international search lasting more than eight months. Verna, who takes up the new job in March, 2012, succeeds New Zealand-born Gregory Burke. After a five-year stint, he left the not-for-profit art gallery in late May after announcing his resignation in February."
250,000 students to get free access to AGO learning wing Kate Hammer, From Monday's Globe and Mail, Published Sunday, Nov. 27, 2011 9:36PM EST
TORONTO – "The Toronto District School Board and the Art Gallery of Ontario are teaming up for a first-of-its-kind educational partnership that will bring students, especially those from high-needs communities, into the gallery. The partnership includes free access for students to the educational wing of the gallery, specialized curriculum resources for teachers, and a chance for students to view TDSB-owned art previously relegated to a school basement. More than 250,000 students, as well as their parents and teachers will have free access to the learning wing of the gallery. "A partnership of this scale affecting this many students and teachers has never happened before," said Kelly McKinley, director of education and public planning for the AGO. "We wanted to do it because we wanted to help the board take full advantage of the [art] collection that they hold, we wanted to make sure that it was preserved and that the public has access to it."
Content focus of rights museum: Chinese group wants story told Geoff Kirbyson, Winnipeg Free Press, Posted: 11/27/2011 1:00 AM
WINNIPEG – "With both fundraising and construction moving toward completion, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights is turning its attention toward the exhibits it will put on display. Museum officials met Sunday with representatives from across the country from the Chinese Canadian community to begin discussions how to tell their story. Joseph Du, president of the Winnipeg Chinese Cultural and Community Centre, where the talks were held, said he'd like to see a pair of human rights issues that are close to his heart addressed at the museum -- the head tax, a fixed fee charged to each Chinese person entering Canada starting in 1885, and the Chinese Exclusion Act, a U.S. law that banned immigration from China. "It's about education. People will learn from history and hopefully won't make a similar mistake," Du said. "We hope (the discussions) are the beginning, like a seed that will flower and turn to fruit."
French Museums Atone for a Colonial History Edward Rothstein, The New York Times, 25 November 2011
PARIS — "You walk through a garden lush with overgrowth, a cultivated wilderness with exotic grasses gone deliberately to seed. Inside the effect is the same: You enter the eerily atmospheric hall where you meander past artifacts from Oceania, Africa and other realms beyond Europe’s borders, as speckled daylight seeps through window scrims decorated with forest foliage. The displays are lush with miscellany: here, an ivory statuette of a goddess from the Tonga islands that once was shown in an 18th-century curiosity cabinet; there, a desiccated human skull, covered in black-colored beeswax, acquired in early-20th-century Papua New Guinea. But wait: before trying to decipher this strange universe, at the Musée du Quai Branly, consider another, elsewhere in Paris. Only here the impression is of vast, arching spaces and skylights that cast no shadows. You readily recognize the iconography of church portals, pilasters and statuary. It looks as if entire facades had been amputated from cathedrals all over France in a wild species of plunder. Here are the intricately ornamented arches of a 12th-century church in Saintes; there, ornate 16th-century doors from the cathedral of Aix-en-Provence. Centuries of grotesque, open-mouthed gargoyles are poised on a wall overhead, as if prepared to spew venomous rainwater. You gaze in wonder at what seems to be intricately carved and worn stone. But, more remarkably, everything is made of plaster. It is a hall of casts chronicling some 700 years of French architecture on the ground floor of the Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine."
Pier 21: Canada's newest museum goes through tough transition Jacob Boon, OpenFile, 21 November 2011
HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA – "It’s not everyday a new Crown corporation is created, and less often does that new corporation take over from a previously established non-profit. But sitting on the Halifax waterfront is the one museum that's been able to make it through that transition. Which is to say, it's been a busy couple of years for Pier 21. "It's probably a lot like childbirth," says CEO Marie Chapman. "Once you're out of it, it feels good again." Labour pains notwithstanding, the sheer logistic challenges the newly formed Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 has had to figure out since Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced its creation in 2009 are enough to make anyone want an epidural. Aside from the legal matters surrounding the transfer of all of its assets, the Pier 21 Society also had to figure out how to comply with the 15 federal acts—bureaucratic exercises like Expenditure Restraint Act, and others like Freedom of Information and the Privacy Act—which now govern the museum's operations."
Construction nearly complete on Niagara Falls history museum Daily Commercial News and Construction Record, 24 November 2011
NIAGARA FALLS, ONTARIO – "The City of Niagara Falls, Ontario announced Nov. 14 that construction is nearly complete on the Niagara Falls History Museum. Located near the site of the Battle of Lundy’s Lane in the War of 1812, the museum is undergoing a $12-million renovation project. The renovation and expansion was designed by Moriyama and Teshima of Toronto. "
Museums
Walter B. Denny, Saudi Aramco World, vol. 62 no. 6, November/December 2011
NEW YORK CITY – "In November, after an eight-year, $50-million renovation, 15 galleries devoted to "The Arts of Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia and Later South Asia" will open in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. In what is almost a new museum within the museum, visitors will view some 1200 of the Met's nearly 12,000 Arab-Islamic works arranged not chronologically from past to present, but rather as a kind of geographical traverse across places and cultures. This new way of organizing the exhibits, reflected in the long name that omits the word "Islamic," reflects an evolving emphasis on the diversity that exists within a vast field that includes not only religious art by Muslims, but also much secular and luxury art by Muslims, as well as art by Muslims for non-Muslims and vice versa. Among the new cases and spaces are three displays that promise to be especially striking: the Spanish Ceiling, an elaborately carved, painted and glazed wooden ceiling probably made in the 14th, 15th or 16th centuries by Muslim artists for Christian patrons; the Damascus Room, an early-18th-century reception room (qa'a) from a Damascus merchant's mansion; and the Moroccan Courtyard, the Met's newest jewel, created this year inside the museum in authentic 14th-century style by contemporary artists from Fez, Morocco who used materials and tools of the era. "
Museums enjoy 10 years of freedom Ian Youngs, BBC News, 1 December 2011
UNITED KINGDOM – "Exactly 10 years ago, museums and galleries - including the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Natural History Museum - scrapped entrance fees as part of a government plan to widen access to the nation's culture and heritage. Visitor numbers have shot up - but who has really benefited, and can free admission survive in an age when government funds are stretched to the limit? When then Culture Secretary Chris Smith guaranteed that flagship museums and art galleries would be free, he promised that it would herald "an exciting new beginning for the arts and cultural life of this country". Ten years on, Smith, now Baron Smith of Finsbury, says the success of the policy has exceeded his expectations. "
Free museums: Visits more than double David Sillito, BBC News, 1 December 2011
UNITED KINGDOM – "Government-sponsored museums that have stopped charging since 2001 have seen combined visitor rates more than double in the past decade, figures show. Almost 18 million people visited the 13 attractions in 2010-11, compared with 7 million in 2000-01. Thursday marks the 10th anniversary of the Labour government's decision to end charges at England's national museums. Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt said free museums and galleries "ensure that culture is for everyone". Entrance fees to museums, including the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Natural History Museum, both in London, were scrapped on 1 December 2001 as part of a government plan to widen access to the nation's culture and heritage. "
Museum entry fees: How the UK compares Vincent Dowd, BBC News, 1 December 2011
UNITED KINGDOM / WORLD - "It's a decade since most of Britain's national museums and galleries abandoned entrance fees as a matter of government policy. Since then, only a few other nations around the world have followed suit. Why do so many countries remain wedded to taking money at the door? In the first half of 2008, visitors could enjoy many French museums and galleries free of charge for the first time. The experiment, ordered by President Sarkozy soon after he came to power, was inspired in part by Britain's shift to free admission in 2001. Some French institutions threw open their doors entirely, while others introduced free admission on certain days. But when the six months were up, the charges returned and the experiment has not been repeated. "
Sixty museums in search of a purpose An analysis of the mission statements of leading US art museums yields some surprising results András Szántó. From The Art Newspaper, Published online: 01 December 2011
UNITED STATES - "Quick. What do the following terms have in common? Beauty. Values. Discussion. Contemplation. The answer: none of them figures prominently among the institutional imperatives of US art museums—at least in light of their mission statements. In fact, if you scanned 60 mission statements of prominent museums that exhibit contemporary art, you would find that each of the words above appears exactly once. Other words found missing from 59 of 60 mission statements: advocate, progressive, ambitious, ethical, intelligence, strategic, video. Why spend time counting up words in mission statements? The inspiration for the exercise is an Art Basel Conversation taking place tomorrow morning about evolving museum missions. "
Canadian Baseball Hall Of Fame: Tom Valcke gets ready to clear out his locker Morris Dalla Costa, London Free Press, Thursday, December 1, 2011
ST. MARY’S, ONTARIO – "The man who for 11 years has been the driving force behind the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum said simply, "It was time to go." After more than a decade as chief executive and president of the Hall of Fame, Tom Valcke has told his board of directors he's resigning effective Feb. 29. The Windsor native has increased the profile of the Hall of Fame and museum and kept it afloat financially -- all the while improving its facilities, such as establishing a baseball diamond that Valcke calls Canada's Field of Dreams because it's used by dozens of teams, including Canada's national team. "
The World’s Largest Model Railroad Adds the World’s Largest Model Airport Andrew Liszewski, Gizmodo, 30 November 2011 [includes a fabulous promo video!]
HAMBURG, GERMANY – "With expansions planned all the way to 2020, the world's largest model railroad just opened its latest addition: a 1,600-square-foot model airport, chock full of tiny aircraft support vehicles, hangers, terminals, and passengers. Originally scheduled to open in 2009, it has taken more than six years to complete the $4,440,000+ expansion to Hamburg's Miniatur Wunderland. "
Children's Museum lands home in downtown St. Augustine 'Fantastic space' set to open by 450th Sheldon Gardner, The St. Augustine Record, Posted: November 30, 2011 - 12:37am
ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA – "After almost five years of work, officials at the Children’s Museum of St. Johns have found a home for a future "world-class" children’s museum. The Children’s Museum plans to buy the Dow Museum of Historic Houses site in downtown St. Augustine and transform it into a multi-themed, locally focused museum. "This is our first bit of big news," Children’s Museum Executive Director Susan Connor said. "We really think this is going to be a fantastic space." Officials at the Children’s Museum have been working on getting the Dow property, formerly known as the Old St. Augustine Village, since May, Connor said. Museum officials entered into a six-month lease to purchase agreement earlier this month. Operated by the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Daytona Beach, the property is a collection of nine historic houses at the intersection of St. George, Bridge and Cordova streets. "
En Grèce, le ministre de la Culture veut poursuivre le plan de rénovation des musées malgré la crise Artclair, 30 novembre 2011
ATHENES - "En 2010, un plan de rénovation des principaux sites et musées grecs avait été lancé pour remettre aux normes des institutions souvent privées de services élémentaires comme de toilettes ou d’un accès dédié aux personnes en situation de handicap. Après un week-end troublé par la menace d’une grève générale des gardiens de sites, le ministre de la Culture, Pavlos Geroulanos, a assuré, le 28 novembre 2011, poursuivre cette entreprise malgré la crise. 177 sites sont concernés par les travaux, dont une part sera financée par l’Union européenne. " [see also Greece improves museums, sites for tourists: ministry, Agence France-Presse, The Vancouver Sun, 29 November 2011]
Curators becoming a vanishing breed on local art scene With three sites dropping them as a luxury, have exhibits suffered? Kyle MacMillan, The Denver Post, 29 November 2011
DENVER, COLORADO – "The big story in the Front Range art scene over the past five years has been the explosive growth in museums, from the addition of a $29 million institution devoted to artist Clyfford Still to an array of sleek new buildings and additions. With this new construction has naturally come increased curatorial firepower, like the addition of Nora Burnett Abrams at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, and more and often better-quality exhibitions. But as museums take major strides forward, the area's alternative art centers seem to be slipping backward, cutting curatorial positions and settling for inconsistent and often unambitious exhibition schedules. "
Sheppard opens military museum Jim’s Independent Military Museum open Colleen Kelly, The Coaster (Harbour Breton, NL), 29 November 2011
HARBOUR BRETON, NL – "For many of us Remembrance Day comes and goes and except for those brief two minutes of silence the day passes much like every other day does. It’s not that we don’t care, or we don’t know, it is often times the hectic pace our modern lives have evolved into that seems to eat away our attention and our days. However, one man in the small coastal community of Rencontre East decided that his passion for everything military was worth sharing with others and so Jim Sheppard, (Chief Warrant Officer, retired), officially opened his private museum, affectionately known as J.I.M.M. or Jim’s Independent Military Museum on November 10th, 2011. "
Coline Milliard, ARTINFO, 29 November 2011
OXFORD – "Oxford University's Ashmolean Museum has just opened a new chapter in the distant past, unveiling its new galleries dedicated to Ancient Egypt and Nubia. This £5 million ($7.7 million) refurbishment has allowed the re-housing of 40,000 artifacts collected over the last 300 years, including coffins and mummies that haven't been displayed since the Second World War. Designed by Rick Mather Architects, the six new galleries lead visitors from Egypt's origins in the Paleolithic period to the annexation of the country by the Roman Empire after the suicide of Cleopatra in 30 BC. Liam McNamara, lead curator for the redevelopment of the new galleries, told ARTINFO UK: "We hope that by presenting the galleries in a chronological sequence we will enable our visitors to understand the great length of time that the Egyptian civilization covers — three millennia — but also the aspects of continuity and change that occurred during those 3,000 years."
Hurt by war in Iraq, a Baghdad museum reemerges Exhibit gives sign that war horrors are receding, and country is settling into a new normal Scott Peterson, The Christian Science Monitor, 29 November 2011
BAGHDAD — With a snip of red ribbon, a new exhibit opened Nov. 17 at the Iraqi Museum, providing one more sign that Iraq is leaving behind the worst horrors of war and creating a new normal. "You know what we have been through, and it was very dangerous," says Shaimaa, an archaeologist who has worked at the museum since 1999. "So many things are happening that convince us things are changing for the better." Among them is the reemergence of her beloved museum, after being devastated by looting early in the war. "We were heartbroken – it's like someone takes your heart, or takes one of your children. Any human would feel this way," says Shaimaa, who would only give her first name. "But we are optimistic people we have turned back, with so much help." Indeed, the transformation at the museum – where 15,400 priceless artifacts were carted away by looters soon after US forces entered Baghdad in 2003 – shows a determined optimism, in a nation where pessimism has become ingrained. "
Museum Workers Strike over Pensions Patrick Steele, Museums Journal, 29 November 2011
ENGLAND – "Museums in Liverpool, Newcastle, Preston and Inverclyde, and parts of BM, to close – Museum workers across the country are to strike over government plans to increase public sector pension contributions. In London, a mass gathering of union members from the Victoria and Albert Museum, Science Museum and Natural History Museum (NHM) is to take place on Exhibition Road at 10.30 on Wednesday 30 November. Workers from the British Museum (BM), Imperial War Museum, Museum of London, National Gallery, National Maritime Museum, Tate Modern and Tate Britain, and the National Portrait Gallery, are also expected to strike. "
Make Museums Free: What we can learn from Britain and Washington Robert Fulford, National Post, 29 November 2011
CANADA – "After two or three centuries in business, public museums have developed into one of the splendours of democracy, the only places where private taste meets elite scholarship and we all pursue our own passions at our own pace. It’s an arena of opinion that permits individualism and innovation to come magnificently alive. Just one thing is wrong: Going to a museum in Canada costs money. Unlike parks, libraries and cathedrals, museums have box offices. If two adults take three teenagers to the National Gallery in Ottawa, they pay $18. That’s to enter a building that their taxes built, to see art that they, being citizens, own. The Vancouver Art Gallery, which charges $17.50 for an individual ticket, offers a family rate (maximum two adults and four children) for $50, plus tax. Paddy Johnson, a Canadian curator who runs an art blog from Brooklyn, recently wrote: "I’ve never thought the public should be charged to see their own belongings." That’s also the British view. In Britain most of the national museums are entirely free, most of the time. In Washington the array of museums run by the Smithsonian Institution on the Mall proudly advertises "admission always free."
The cost of the cultural revolution Free entry to the UK’s museums and galleries comes at a high price, says Stephen Deuchar The Independent, 28 November 2011
UNITED KINGDOM – "It has been 10 years since universal free entry to the permanent collections of the UK's elite group of national museums and galleries was introduced by the Labour government. Following a campaign led by the museums themselves, the Art Fund and others, entry charges were dropped in stages – for children in 1999, the over-60s in 2000 and finally for all visitors from 1 December 2001. First, the good news: the impact was huge. Museums that used to charge admission – the Science and Natural History Museums for example – saw their visitor numbers increase by more than 150 per cent over the following decade. And those that didn't charge, like the British Museum, Tate and National Gallery, flourished with the help of the extra funding they received to guarantee they could remain free. In all, more than 43 million visitors to our national museums were recorded last year. [See also Free museum entry is a treasure too precious to lose, By Charlotte Higgins, The Guardian, 28 November 2011]
Expanded museum gives boost to Tel Aviv art scene Ari Rabinovitch, Recent News, artdaily.org, 28 November 2011
TEL AVIV – "Tel Aviv's recently expanded modern art museum, with its dazzling new building no less an attraction than the art showcased inside, has given a home to hundreds of displaced Israeli works and helped boost the city's cultural scene. The new wing, designed by Massachusetts architect Preston Scott Cohen, has doubled the size of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art by 19,000 square metres (200,000 square feet) and lured a growing number of art fans through its new, triangular concrete and glass complex since its November 3 unveiling. "There has never been an exhibit that fully reflected Israeli art, and now there is," said the museum's acting director Shuli Kislev. "Tel Aviv received a wonderful gift." The reason for the four-year, $50 million building project, she said, was to provide a space for the collection of Israeli art that was growing in the museum's storage rooms. "
State museum may have to close for up to 2 years Pat Forgey, Juneau Empire, 28 November 2011
JUNEAU — "The Alaska State Museum has been an institution in Juneau for decades, but it's one that the city and its hundreds of thousands of visitors may have to learn to live without for up to two years. The new state Library, Archives and Museum project now underway will be built on the Willoughby Avenue site of the current museum building. That means if project advocates, including history buffs around the state and members of the Juneau legislative delegation, are successful in getting approval of remaining funding from the Parnell administration and the Alaska Legislature, the museum could "go dark" for up to a couple of years, said Linda Thibodeau, director of the Division of Libraries, Archives and Museums. The construction plans are still being drafted and a timeline has yet to be finalized, but a closure time of about 20 months is expected. However, when that 20 month period would start is not clear. "
The hidden gem museums of Paris David Farley, Gadling.com, 28 November 2011
PARIS – "The City of Light. The City of Love. The City of Museums? Why not. With the Louvre's 30,000 paintings and the Musée d'Orsay's thousands-strong art collection, it's easy to forget that there are other museums in the City of Light. In fact, almost 200 museums-both plus-sized and petite, illustrious and obscure-are sprinkled throughout the French capital, featuring everything from Picasso to Edith Piaf, submarines to sewers, eyeglasses to medical implements. I spent a few months in Paris and, after I grew tired of dealing with the crowds at the popular museums, I sought out the lesser-known spots, the hidden gem museums of Paris. "
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts used Architem to design settings for its collections John Pohl, The Montreal Gazette, November 27, 2011
MONTREAL – "Ever try to hang a painting on a wall and wonder why it doesn’t speak to you as clearly as the day it came into your life? Maybe the problem is the painting is competing for attention with the room or the objects in it. Architem, an architectural firm that designs spaces for displaying art collections, has this advice: design the space to suit the art. The firm’s expert work for private clients won it a commission in 2007 from the Museum of Fine Arts to design All for Art! Our Great Private Collectors Share Their Works. That led to Architem redesigning the many galleries of the MMFA’s Old and Modern Masters collections, a job completed to coincide with the opening, in October, of the museum’s Bourgie concert hall and the new pavilion for Canadian and Quebec art. Everything in the design of a gallery revolves around the art. This is what I learned on a tour of the galleries from Eduardo Carrera, who led the MMFA project for Architem, along with two of the firm’s partners, Andrea Wolff and Elizabeth Shapiro. "
Bicentenary knocks on door, but Indian Museum stuck in time warp Avik Das (TNN), The Times of India, Nov 27, 2011, 05.04AM IST
KOLKATA – "Indian Museum, one of the oldest in the world, will celebrate its bicentenary in 2014. But nobody at the helm of affairs appears to have any clue about how to make this historic feat a gala event. An attempt was initiated in 2008 with the formation of a Bicentenary Vision And Development Committee (BVDC) to steer the restoration work at the museum, but the effort has ended up in a bureaucratic muddle and resulted in resignation of eminent scholars who were once inducted into the committee. Anup Motilal, director of the museum as an additional charge, said work on the external facade will start in December this year. He claimed Chapman & Taylor (C&T), which has been roped in as the consultancy firm to prepare a report on the restoration work, has already submitted a report. But when contacted, C&T India representative Sapna Kumar told TOI they have three months time and will submit the report in December. Sources in National Buildings Construction Corporation Ltd (NBCC), which was awarded the project by the ministry of culture on a turnkey basis, also confirmed it. "
Views and News from Norway, November 27, 2011
OSLO – "MUSEUM GUIDE: Tucked away on the south side of Oslo’s famed Frogner Park is a large historic building that in many ways made the park itself possible. The Vigeland Museum, named for the artist behind the park’s enormous collection of sculptures, is where Gustav Vigeland lived and worked for nearly two decades. It reopened earlier this year and a visit can make a tour of the park much more meaningful. There actually are two historic homes and museums on the park’s south side, both of which led to creation of the park, and this guide already has visited the Oslo City Museum (Bymuseet) and Frogner Hovedgård. Now visitors are welcome once again at the Vigeland Museum across the street, after a major if somewhat unnoticeable renovation. "
New unit of the Moderna galerija, the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova opens in Ljubljana Recent News, artdaily.org, 26 November 2011
LJUBLJANA – "More than 15 years after the time Moderna galerija was allotted the use of one of the buildings in the former Yugoslav People's Army barracks in Metelkova Street, the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova, the new unit of the Moderna galerija in Ljubljana, is finally opening. The MSUM will house the collection of contemporary art (the national and the international Arteast 2000+ collections) and stage a related exhibitions program. Located in MSUM there are also some of the expanded institution's professional services: the archives, the library and the restoration-conservation studio. "
Christoph Thun-Hohenstein Presents New MAK Program: Exhibitions – Projects – Strategies e-flux, 26 November 2011
VIENNA – "After taking office as MAK Director in September, Christoph Thun-Hohenstein has begun a vital project of transforming the museum for the future. Under the title of "Change through applied art", the museum has commenced a process of public consultancy, open forums, and reflexive examination of what a universal Museum of Applied Arts stands for in the twenty first century. Crucially, this questioning focuses on a collection that encompasses art, architecture, design as well as on what the MAK Collection stands for and on the role it can play in advancing museology and exhibition making. "Applied art needs to be filled with new life. Utilizing its potential as a motor of positive change in our society—socially, ecologically and culturally—is the main mission of an active museum of applied arts," explains Thun-Hohenstein at his first program presentation on 24 November 2011. "
San Francisco's Mexican Museum to get new home Fox News Latino, 24 November 2011
SAN FRANCISCO – "Plans are in the works for a new building to house San Francisco's Mexican Museum, a project with a price tag of more than $13 million. Some 50,000 people visit the museum each year at its current location at the Fort Mason Center, which covers 10,500 sq. feet (232 sq. meters). Although that site represents a significant upgrade over its original two-room location on Folsom St., it is no longer adequate for the museum's expanded collection. "Our institution has more than 14,000 works of art in its collection. We need a bigger site to display more of the works and better serve the community and our audiences through educational, cultural and public programs," Jonathan Yorba, CEO of the Mexican Museum, told Efe. The museum recently received an $800,000 planning grant from the California Cultural and Historical Endowment, or CCHE, to design and develop the new location, a 40,000-sq.-foot (3,720-sq.-meter) building that will be located in San Francisco's Yerba Buena cultural district on the corner of 3rd St. and Mission St. "
Lanzamiento de la revista Museus em Números por el IBRAM El Instituto Brasileño de Museos lanza la publicación en dos volúmenes Ibermuseos, 23/11/2011
BRASIL – "La revista Museus em Números ofrece un panorama estadístico nacional e internacional del sector de museos y textos analíticos sobre la situación de los museos en las unidades federativas del Brasil. Los dados son referentes a 1.500 instituciones museológicas brasileñas que respondieron al cuestionario do Cadastro Nacional de Museus (CNM), registradas entre las más de tres mil instituciones mapeadas en todo el país en el momento del levantamiento de datos para la investigación (septiembre de 2010). "
What Hours Should Museums Be Open? Nina Simon, Museum 2.0, 23 November 2011
WORLD – " It's interesting to me that so many museums debate admission fees but don't get comparably riled up about open hours. Some of the most innovative, community-focused museums I know of are trapped in the 11-5 game, and it's frankly a little bizarre--especially from visitors' perspective. The obvious outcome of daytime hours is fewer visitors. But it also has a lot of other chicken-egg effects. Imagine if a theater or jazz club was only open during the day, and what conclusions one might draw about audience type and preferences based on that decision. " |
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