Displaying items by tag: controversy

The state bank of Germany's North Rhine-Westphalia has decided against selling two Sigmar Polke works of art following a countrywide controversy over the deaccessioning of two Andy Warhol works of art - reported by "Monopol."

The German casino conglomerate Westspiel, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the bank, announced the decision to sell the pair of works, estimated at €100 million or £78 million, in September. The works will be up at auction at Christie's New York and have generated considerable controversy in Germany, the story has even graced the front pages of German newspapers. The bank has now subsequently dropped plans to sell the pair of Polke works, in a move, which some have seen as an effort by the state to avoid yet further criticism from the public.

Sometimes museums get in trouble. Deep trouble. Not because they damage art, or let it get stolen ... but because they sell it. The Delaware Art Museum is the latest target of the art world's ire — for selling one painting from its collection to try and tackle a debt, and for revelations in the past few days that two more paintings are up for sale.

The controversy relates to a serious museum practice with an unfriendly name: "deaccessioning," or the permanent removal of an object from the collection. There are rules around when and how deaccessioning can take place. Break those rules and there are some unpleasant consequences.

The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is already under pressure this week for loaning out its most popular pieces. Now, human rights group Edo United for Homeland Empowerment is renewing controversy over a series of Benin artworks in the collection of the MFA and demanding their return to the state of Nigeria. Over two years ago, the National Commission for Museums and Monuments in Nigeria called for the return of the same 32 artifacts, which were part of a collection donated by Robert Owen Lehman and are now housed in the museum’s Benin Kingdom Gallery.

“To protect cultural heritage is a basic requirement of human civilization,” the organization said in a statement from president Frank Ekhator, vice president Dickson Iyawe, and secretary Omolayo Omoruyi-Ukhuedoba.

The New York Public Library has pulled the plug on its planned stack attack.

The NYPL announced Wednesday it was abandoning plans to turn its iconic branch on 42nd St. from a research facility into a circulating library, a scheme that would have required the demolition of the historic book stacks under the landmark building’s Rose Reading Room.

“Throughout this process our focus has been making this library even better for our millions of visitors by creating an improved space for our largest circulating branch,” library president Tony Marx said.

Paris’s Picasso museum, which houses one of the world’s most extensive collections of the Spanish painter’s work, is set to reopen its doors in September after being closed for five years for renovation, the culture ministry announced Sunday.

The popular museum was originally to be closed for a two-year renovation and the delay has caused controversy, with the painter's son Claude Picasso on Friday accusing the French government of indifference and saying he was "scandalised and very worried" about the future of the museum.

Thanks to a grant from Bank of America’s Art Conservation Project, the Detroit Institute of Arts has embarked on a research endeavor focused on examining and digitally photographing 13 full-scale preparatory drawings by Diego Rivera for his Detroit Industry murals. The drawings have not been viewed since 1986 and have never been photographed. The project, which started on July 22, 2013, will last through August 2, 2013 and will include any necessary conservation work on the drawings.

Rivera gave the drawings, which are housed in a climate-controlled custom storage in the museum, to the DIA after he completed his monumental Detroit Industry murals in 1933. The series of frescoes, which features 27 panels surrounding the museum’s Rivera Court, depict the then state-of-the-art Ford Motor Company River Rouge Plant. The murals stirred up controversy following their completion and critics deemed the works blasphemous, vulgar, un-American and Marxist propaganda. While members of the Detroit community called for the destruction of the murals, commissioner Edsel Ford and DIA Director Wilhelm Valentiner defended the murals’ right to exist.

Following the research project, 5 of the 13 panels will be go on view at DIA as part of an exhibition of works by Rivera and his wife Frida Kahlo created during their time in Detroit.

Irina Antonova, the 91-year-old director of Moscow’s Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts who has helmed the institution for 52 years, has been let go after just recently renewing her five-year contract. The announcement, which was made on Monday, July 1, follows a battle waged by Antonova to bring a collection of Impressionist art, which was sent to the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg by Joseph Stalin, back to Moscow.

Antonova’s vision was to restore the once magnificent State Museum of New West Art in Moscow, which housed paintings by Henri Matisse (1869-1954), Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) and Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890). Stalin shuttered the museum in 1948 after his regime deemed the collection too far removed from Soviet art. The Museum of New Western Art’s collection, which was assembled by Russian art collectors Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morozov, was later divided between the Pushkin Museum and the Hermitage Museum.

Antonova first made her campaign public in April 2013 when she appealed to Russian president Vladimir Putin during a televised call-in show. The plea sparked controversy with the Hermitage’s director, Mikhail Piotrovsky. After a heated battle, the state intervened and suggested creating an online “virtual museum” as a compromise between the two parties but Antonova refused.

Since the Pushkin’s announcement earlier this week, Antonova has been moved to the ceremonial post of the museum’s president. Marina Loshak, an established curator, will replace Antonova.

Over the course of 25 years in the 1980s and 1990s, Harry Rodman, a veteran gold refiner from New York City, and Alan Bronstein, a diamond dealer from New Jersey, assembled the Aurora Pyramid of Hope Diamonds, the most comprehensive collection of colored diamonds in the world. Featuring 295 rare gems, the collection became a point of controversy after Rodman died at the age of 99 in 2008.

Last year, Rodman’s heirs hit Bronstein with a lawsuit claiming that they were entitled to Rodman’s half of the diamond collection, which one appraiser valued at $14 million. The case became more complicated as Rodman, who made several wills in the last ten years of his life, was not only Bronstein’s partner, but also his stepfather. The legal dispute recently came to a close when Bronx Surrogate Judge Lee L. Holzman ruled that Bronstein fairly bought out Rodman’s interest in the Aurora Pyramid collection as well as another well-known grouping of diamonds known as the Aurora Butterfly of Peace.  

The Aurora Pyramid of Hope, which is currently on loan to London’s Natural History Museum, has been exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. and the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Bronstein plans to keep exhibiting the collection in museums for the benefit and enjoyment of the public.

The fate of Berlin’s collection of Old Masters painting has been a source of controversy for nearly a year. While museum space in the city dwindles, the works are currently being held in the Gemäldegalerie, a museum devoted to European art from the 13^th to 18^th centuries, fueling concerns that the paintings may soon be banished to a storage facility.

German culture minister Bernd Neumann attempted to nix fears by reassuring the public that a new institution will be built to house the collection within five to six years. However, there is still some concern as to where the collection, which boasts masterworks by Rembrandt (1606-1669), Sandro Boticelli (1445-1510), Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675), and Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), will be exhibited until then.

Initial plans had the Old Masters collection going to the Bode Museum while the new Museum of 20^th Century and Modern Art took over the Gemäldegalerie. However, Neumann has suggested a number of other options. One of the plans has the Old Masters remaining in the Gemäldegalerie and building an entirely new modern art museum. Another one of Neumann’s strategies has the Bode Museum swapping out its sculpture collection in exchange for the Old Masters paintings.

Neumann’s various plans will be proposed to the Prussian Foundation and a decision will be reached this spring.

Art.sy, a New York City-based startup, which helps art lovers discover new works of interest using a Pandora-like model, has been at the center of an unexpected controversy. Art.sy shares the same official domain suffix (.sy) as the Syrian Arab Republic and as conflicts continue to rise in the worn-torn country, it has become clear that Art.sy needs to make some adjustments.

Art.sy’s main webpage was taken offline on January 2, 2013 and traffic was redirected to a backup site, Artsy.net. Officials explained that Art.sy’s domain, which had been paid for through the end of the year, was coming up as incorrectly expired and that the site would be restored the next day. As of January 4, Art.sy has officially changed its name to Artsy and moved its domain to artsy.net, permanently.

Artsy purchased their .sy domain in 2009, before the violence in Syria began to worsen. The site, which offers over 21,000 high-resolution artworks for the enjoyment of users, hopes to run uninterrupted from now on.