Horsefly/Martin Puryear, 1996-2000 — Photo: MOMA
Richard Serra is a hard act to follow. But if there’s any American sculptor with a body of work to compare with his, it’s Martin Puryear, whose career retrospective opens Nov. 4 at the Museum of Modern Art. A few weeks ago, as he was installing the show at MoMA, I sat down with …
Shibboleth/Doris Salcedo/2007 — Photo: Tate
One of the first things I did in London this week was head over to Tate Modern, where the newest site specific work in the Tate’s vast Turbine Hall, the Superbowl of contemporary art, is Shibboleth, by the Colombian artist Doris Salcedo. It consists of a crack that runs the length of the …
Let’s finish up that talk with Dimitrios Pandermalis, who heads the new Acropolis Museum project.
LACAYO: I know you’re familiar with the concept of the universal museum, the idea that great works of art are the common heritage of mankind and should be distributed among museums around the world. What do you think of …
Dimitrios Pandermalis is the president of the New Acropolis Museum Project. (Until the museum opens, there’s no one with the title of director.) Last week he gave me a tour of the new building. Then we sat down for a conversation about the new museum, the Elgin Marbles and whether the British should be persuaded to send them back to …
Another day, another time zone. Late yesterday I caught a flight from Athens to London, to catch up with the fall shows here and maybe trip over that crack that Doris Salcedo has run down the floor of the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern. (Where’s my lawyer!!) I deliberately postponed this trip until after the Frieze Fair, London’s fall …
New Acropolis Museum/Bernard Tschumi — Images: Courtesy New Acropolis Museum
I got a preview a few days ago of the new Acropolis Museum in Athens. Any building has to accomodate its site, and for some the site can be a very delicate matter. (You’ve heard of the World Trade Center, no?) But I can’t think of another building where the …
Laurie Simmons/Lari Pittman/Judy Pfaff/Pierre Huyghe — Photos: Courtesy PBS
Before I left for Athens I previewed the upcoming episode of Art in the Twenty-First Century, the PBS series that starts its fourth season Sunday. If you saw the first three, you know it’s the best thing on TV about contemporary art. Then again, it’s …
Cecil Court, London, WC2 (The Refugees), R.B. Kitaj, 1983-84 — Photo:Tate
Greece puts you in mind of the glorious past. Now I learn from yesterday’s International Herald Tribune that two notable people have just become history. (Where, I would guess, the Trib may also end up before long, as more tourists get their news from …
When I woke up tonight — yes, tonight, that’s multiple timezone flying for you — I saw there was an internet dust up in a couple of places over something I said about the “History of the Snapshot” show yesterday at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. ( I forget, was that yesterday in the U.S., or yesterday where I am?) Fair …
After that antiquities conference in Dallas last week, it seemed the only thing to do was to head off to Greece and see some of those antiquities in their native habitat. I’ll be reporting in late tomorrow on the new Acropolis Museum and other developments.
But first, it was a long flight, so off to dreamland.
Unidentified/ 1950s — Photo: National Gallery of Art
Incredibly, I’m back on the road again, again. (Didn’t I just get home?) I’ll be checking back in tomorrow. But before I leave town I wanted to offer a comment or two on “The Art of the American Snapshot, 1888-1978,” a new show at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, which …
Kimbell Art Museum/Louis Kahn — Photo: Kimbell Art Museum
I’m back from Dallas with a couple of final thoughts from my trip there.
1. First, about “The Future of the Past, ” the conference I attended at Southern Methodist University. Most of it was focused on the split between archeologists on one side and museums, dealers and …
A brief report from the first day of that conference on “cultural property” I’m attending at Southern Methodist University in Dallas:
On the question of how to deal with antiquities, there’s a big division in the artworld. On the one side are the archeologists, who think art collectors and museums should all but stop buying ancient …
