Displaying items by tag: public funds

A survey has found that support for the Guggenheim’s Helsinki project is weak among city councilmembers in the Finnish capital, raising questions about the financial future of the museum’s latest global outpost. The January 16 questionnaire, published by the Yle newspaper, found that 39 of 68 city councilmembers polled either do not support the Guggenheim Helsinki at all or object to the provision of public funds to the Guggenheim. These findings follow contentious public discussions of the funding for the Helsinki franchise in Finland, most recently in June 2014, when Guggenheim director Richard Armstrong walked out of an interview after being asked pointed questions about the project’s budget.

Six former high ranking Spanish government officials are being investigated over alleged corruption surrounding the sale of government-owned artworks, including two paintings by the Spanish master Francisco Goya with a total worth of around €14 million, Spanish daily newspaper ABC reported on Friday.

Former education secretary Eva Almunia, and her husband Carlos Eso, who served in the cabinet in Spain’s Aragones region, oversaw the purchase of five paintings purchased with public funds between 2006 and 2010, while they were both in office.

Philippine authorities recovered on Tuesday more than a dozen paintings, including a work by Pablo Picasso, from an office and residences of lawmaker Imelda Marcos, a day after an anti-corruption court ordered their seizure.

The court ordered the family of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos surrender eight paintings by famous European artists, declaring they had been illegally acquired with public funds.

Barbara Hepworth’s sculpture Figure for Landscape (1960) sold for a record-setting £4,170,500 / ($7,085,680) at Christie’s sale of modern British and Irish art in London on Wednesday evening. Hepworth’s previous record was set at the same Christie’s sale in July of last year for Curved Form (Bryher II) (1961), which was sold for £2,413,875 ($3,604,412), according to the artnet Price Database.

The sculpture, which was estimated to fetch £1–2 million, was consigned by Norway’s Kunsthall Stavanger, which is on the brink of closure due to lacking public funds.

The Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. has announced that its Renwick Gallery, which houses the museum’s American craft and decorative arts collection from the 19^th to 21^st centuries, will undergo a major renovation. The Renwick Gallery, which opened to the public in 1972, will close to accommodate the project in early 2014 and is expected to reopen in 2016.

Project details are still being worked out and an exact cost for the renovations is yet to be determined. The Smithsonian is planning to use public funds to pay for half of the project and the rest will be paid through private partnerships. The project has already received a $335,000 grant from the National Park Service’s Save America’s Treasures initiative, as the Renwick Gallery is located in a National Historic Landmark building. The building’s construction began in 1859 and went on to house the city’s first art museum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, upon its completion.

Museum officials plan to convert all of the Renwick Gallery’s lighting to energy efficient LED lights and wireless Internet access will be provided throughout the entire gallery. Heating, plumbing, electrical, air conditioning, and fire safety systems will all be gutted and replaced. This will be the Renwick Gallery’s first renovation in 40 years.