Author: jaywp

A new EU Report holds to task the British fine art market, estimated to be worth some £4.2 million per year. From 2006, the droit de suite directive will put a tax of up to 4% on all resales of…

Still on the subject of landscape, it transpires that the process of mapping and monitoring changes in agricultural cropping patterns, sponsored as a result of the reform of the EU common agricultural policy, is using satellite technology to check on…

Edvard Munch has been incarcerated in a smart restaurant overlooking the Oslofjord in Norway, close to where the artist grew up. The themed hotel plays a dangerous game, it seems, its appearance more akin to a kind of wayside art…

US landscape designer, Charles Jencks, is currently working on a woman with breast and hips up to 100 feet high, to be established some ten miles north of Newcastle. This new sculpture will be a kind of soulmate to the…

The Seattle-based jazz composer and instrumentalist, Bill Frisell, has released a new album entitled Richter 858, inspired by a group of eight abstract paintings by German artist, Gerhard Richter. He has accompanied each of the paintings with its own composition…

Robert Crumb, the American master cartoonist, has been successfully exhibited in Britain, where some critics have compared his work to that of Cruickshank or Hogarth. Certainly there is a Rabelaisian impact to the cartoons. Crumb now lives mainly in France,…

On 25 March 2005, an intriguing summer exhibition opened at Compton Verney House in Warwickshire, entitled ‘Salvator Rosa: Wild Landscapes’. As Sir Joshua Reynolds (first President of the Royal Academy) claimed, Rosa’s perspectives offered ‘the power of inspiring sentiments of…

Tate Plans Massive Expansion Tate Modern has announced a plan to expand by some 50%, to establish a new and thriving cultural ‘quartier’ in South London. The project could cost as much as £135 million. Herzog and de Meuron, the…

The effect of the present exhibition at Tate Modern, ‘August Strindberg: painter, photographer, writer’, is to most cultural enthusiasts, simply and profoundly stimulating. Here was a famous writer (for the most part) and participant in the intellectual ferment which at…

The announcement was made in autumn 2004 that the extension to the Victoria and Albert Museum, known as the ‘Spiral’ – hard-won and much praised by the gallery world – was to be cancelled. Once again, the primary reason was…

British efforts to secure a commitment to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games came from London, with the February 2005 presentation to the Olympic Committee held before that of Paris. The razzmatazz for London seemed energetic but somewhat forced, although…

The February 2005 strike by staff at the Science Museum in London was more concerned with future plans for all museums, although it represented major concerns by staff. The 2.5% rise offered in February did not really placate everyone and…

There is a plan to locate a Louvre II in the less prosperous area of Northern France. Two towns have been nominated; Valenciennes and Lens, as well as Calais, Boulogne, Amiens and Arras. Louvre II will house over 500 works…

In a recent survey conducted by a Scottish Sunday paper, Ian Hamilton Finlay’s renowned garden of sculpture and conceptual art, ‘Little Sparta’, came top. A UK-wide poll, taken in the aftermath of the run-up to this year’s Turner Prize, had…

Jannis Kounellis: Modern Art Oxford. 15 December-20 March 2005 This quasi-retrospective exhibition of the work of Jannis Kounellis is a remarkable opportunity to assess the continuing significance of this outstanding artist. Born in 1936, he has been described by some…