Arts news

• When disasters strike, keep calm and conserve

  19-06-2016 23:00
  
  The theme for the joint conference of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC) and the Canadian Association for Conservation of Cultural Property (CAC) couldnt have been more spot on. As 1,400 conservators, archivists and museum professionals met in Montreal to discuss preparing for disasters and the unexpected in conservation, a massive wildfire raged 3,800km away in Alberta. Early estimates suggest that the blaze, which was still active as we went to press,
  
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• The party’s over as New York’s top museums feel the pinch

  19-06-2016 23:00
  
  Many in the field were surprised when three of New Yorks top museumsthe Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Brooklyn Museumannounced that they would seek to reduce staff in the coming months. On Friday, 17 June, the Met revealed the first of such cutbacks among some of its highest paid staff: Cynthia Round, the senior vice president for marketing and external relations; Sree Sreenivasan, the chief digital officer, who is leaving after three years in the newly cre
  
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• Olowu Duro’s multifarious family affair at Camden Arts Centre

  19-06-2016 23:00
  
  It was very much a family affair at Camden Arts Centre on Saturday (18 June) when the celebrated London-based fashion designer Duro Olowu was interviewed by his wife, Thelma Golden, the director of the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, about the exhibition he has just organised at Camden. Joking that we dont see enough of each other, Golden revealed that the busy transatlantic couple had barely discussed the exhibition. She was as curious as the rest of us to understand his thinking behind the
  
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• Louvre Abu Dhabi meets the sea: final stages of construction

  19-06-2016 23:00
  After seven years of holding off the sea to keep the building site of the Louvre Abu Dhabi dry, the temporary sea protection walls have now been removed allowing water to surround the building. The museum is being built on Saadiyat Island and the return of the water fulfils the architect Jean Nouvels vision of the space as a "museum city on the sea". The opening date is yet to be announced.
  
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• Artsy partners with Phillips and Koller auction houses on live bidding

  19-06-2016 23:00
  
  Artsy continues its domination of the online art marketplace with the launch of new software that will allow collectors to bid in live sales at Phillips and Koller auction houses from June. It is the first time the technology start-up, founded in 2009 and backed by investors including the US dealer Larry Gagosian and the Russian collector Dasha Zhukova, will offer users the opportunity to bid in real time from anywhere in the world.
  Sebastian Cwilich, the president and chief operating officer a
  
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• Christopher Columbus statue welcomed in Puerto Rico after US cities rejected it

  19-06-2016 18:09
  
  Zurab Tsereteli’s The Birth of the New World is 45ft taller than the Statue of Liberty and was turned down by Columbus, New York, Boston and MiamiOn Tuesday in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, Zurab Tsereteli’s huge sculpture of Christopher Columbus was inaugurated.Related: Caribbean neighbors Cuba and Puerto Rico wonder who really won cold warRelated: Luzhkov's follies: how Moscow altered beyond recognitionContinue reading...
  
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• Mary Nolan obituary

  19-06-2016 17:57
  
  My friend Mary Boyd, later Lady Nolan, was a painter, ceramicist and photographer who became an important figure linking Australian art and British cultural life.She was the youngest child of the artist potters Doris (nee Gough) and Merric Boyd, and grew up in Murrumbeena, near Melbourne. Her siblings all followed their parents into the family tradition as artists; Arthur and David became perhaps the best-known. Continue reading...
  
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• On my radar: Charlotte Gainsbourg’s cultural highlights

  19-06-2016 11:00
  
  The actor and singer on Edgar Degas, a great documentary about Nina Simone, Budapest’s brilliant Turkish baths and Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipesThe daughter of the English actor and singer Jane Birkin and the French musician Serge Gainsbourg, Charlotte Gainsbourg was born in London in 1971 and raised in Paris. She was awarded the César award for most promising actress in 1986, and for best supporting actress in 2000. After roles including Jane Eyre (1996) and I’m Not There
  
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• Medieval treats off the beaten track in Basel

  19-06-2016 10:33
  
  All this conceptual contemporary art at Art Basel may well tire out some fairgoers; those feeling a little jaded by the Richters and the Kiefers, can head down a side street to the emporium of dealer Dr Jrn Gnther, who is hosting an open house exhibition at his Basel base which overfloweth with illuminated manuscripts, miniatures and early printed books. Visitors to this kunstkammer can ponder over the first account of the New World after its discovery in 1493 written by Christopher Columbus (t
  
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• Tate Modern’s Switch House: art comes first

  19-06-2016 09:00
  
  The Observer’s art critic takes a tour of the gallery’s new extension and finds a beautifully cogent chronicle of art movements from the past 60 years• Rowan Moore, the Observer’s architecture critic, appraises Switch House from the outsideWith the opening of the Switch House, Tate Modern has become the biggest museum of modern art on earth. But did it not exceed every rival already? The only achievement in doubling the size, Jeremiahs predicted, would be to increase the s
  
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• The fine art of living in a gallery home

  19-06-2016 07:00
  
  Deep in the West Country, a converted mill now doubles as an exhibition space and a family home. By Jo Leevers“Walking into a gallery that’s an echoey white room can be an intimidating experience,” says Debra Finn. “I don’t think it’s the best way to see new art.” And she speaks from experience. The home she shares with husband Mark and their children Lorcan, 12, and Ariana, 9, is a converted watermill full of unexpected nooks, with creaky stairs and com
  
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