New Museum Wing Tests Cash-Strapped Modern Days

Piano's addition for Art Institute called his best in a decade

(NEWSER) - This weekend the Art Institute of Chicago opens a mammoth new modern wing designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano. Nicolai Ouroussof praises Piano's mix of "Modern and classical themes," and "towering glass-and-steel facade, with its floating roof and excruciatingly slender columns" straddling gritty railroad tracks. The New York Times' critic calls the building one of Piano's best, "the closest he has come in at least a decade to achieving his near-classical ideal." More»

Miroslaw Balka's How It Is , at the Tate Modern, displays the void

(NEWSER) - The Tate Modern's latest installation is an enormous steel container—100 feet long, 43 feet high, and 30 feet wide—that envelops visitors in total darkness upon entering. How It Is, by Polish artist Miroslaw Balka, is lined with a suede-like material that is 10 times darker than black paint. Named after a Samuel Beckett novel, the piece should be seen as being about everything and nothing, Balka says. More»

(NEWSER) - Herb and Dorothy Vogel had just modest incomes—he was a postal clerk, she a librarian—but over four decades they acquired more than 3,600 drawings, paintings, and collages from America's leading artists. They collected so much that they had to stuff works under their bed. But now the Vogels' one-bedroom apartment has been cleaned out, and their works have been scattered: 50 each to 50 museums across the country plus another 1,100 to the National Gallery in Washington. More»

But university president insists that museum will have to close

(NEWSER) - In the face of universal shock and disapproval, Brandeis University has backpedaled on its plan to sell 6,000 works of modern art—but it will go ahead with its plan to close its museum. At a meeting with about 200 students, the university's president said that a sharp drop in Brandeis' endowment could be alleviated in the future if the economic picture brightened. "We have no particular mandate from the board of trustees as to when to sell, how to sell," he said. More»

Art world condemns decision to close gallery, sell collection

(NEWSER) - The Massachusetts attorney general announced a probe into Brandeis University's shock decision to shut its modern art museum and sell off the entire 6,000-work collection. Brandeis did not consult the AG's office or even the museum's board, and wills and agreements between the Rose Art Museum and its donors may prevent the proposed sales. The university's decision has been met with unanimous anger in the art world and academia alike, reports the New York Times. More»