7 June - Scope Basel to open at Sportplatz Landhof as scheduled
LONDON. The third Scope Basel art fair will open as scheduled next week, following its successful appeal against a planning decision that threatened to force its cancellation or removal to a different site. The fair will be held in a temporary 65,000 sq. ft pavilion on the Sportplatz Landhof, a publicly owned piece of land within a few minutes' walk of the main Art Basel fair. Certain residents' groups had opposed the use of public land for the fair. Scope opens to the press and VIPs on Monday, and to the public from Tuesday to Sunday. The fair will showcase 110 international contemporary galleries, with sections devoted to art from China and Berlin, ten one-artists shows and a SCOPEkids programme of events for children.
LONDON. The centrepiece of the Chinese bronzes exhibition, “Treasures from Shanghai”, at London’s British Museum appears to have been illegally excavated within the past few years. However, it is now legitimately the property of the Shanghai Museum. The British Museum show is the first time the bronze has been exhibited.
19 December - British Army to help turn dictator’s palace into a museum
LONDON. The British Army is offering to help create a museum in Basra, which would be set up by the Iraqi authorities in one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces. British military planners have codenamed the project Oper ation Bell, after Gertrude Bell, the archaeologist who helped establish the Baghdad Museum in 1926. Assistance is also being offered by the British Museum, but all parties stress that this is an Iraqi venture.
The Art Newspaper can report that the location would be the Lakeside Palace, built by Saddam Hussein in the early 1990s.The Lakeside Palace would provide considerable space for antiquities. These would come from Baghdad’s National Museum, which has a huge collection in its stores (including some from Basra which survived the looting in 1991). The new museum would also show ethnography, manuscripts and more modern historical items. Its location in one of Saddam’s palaces would help tell the story of very recent events.
5 September - Death row inmate gives his body to art
COPENHAGEN. Gene Hathorn, a convict on death row in Texas, has agreed to give his body to the Danish-based artist Marco Evaristti, should his final appeal against execution fail. Evaristti plans to turn Hathorn’s body into a work of art. “My aim is to first deep freeze Gene’s body and then make fish food out of it. Visitors to my exhibition will be able to feed goldfish with it,” Evaristti told The Art Newspaper.
25 August - Pre-Raphaelite Collection Saved for Public Display
LONDON. A collection of 53 pictures by Burne-Jones and his contemporaries is to go on show at Fulham Palace, ending speculation that it might be sold. The works were bequeathed by amateur artist Cecil French to London’s Fulham council (now Hammersmith & Fulham) in 1953. Since 1983 several paintings have been on display at Leighton House in Kensington, with the majority kept in store.
1 August - Swiss Artist Touches a Nerve in Iceland
REYKJAVÍK. Swiss artist Christoph Büchel has infuriated citizens of Reykjavík by plastering posters around the Icelandic capital as part of the Reykjavík Arts Festival. Büchel used a poster for the right-wing Swiss political party SVP (Schweizerische Volkspartei) which shows three white sheep kicking a black one off the Swiss flag. He translated its slogan, “Creating security”, into Icelandic.
According to auctioneers, works by Edvard Munch have significantly increased in price as a direct result of the 2004 robbery of the artist’s The Scream and Madonna. In May, Munch’s Girls on a Bridge, 1902, sold for $30.8m at Sotheby’s, tripling the painter’s previous auction record. The same work was sold in 1996 for $7.7m.
4 July - Bacon and Freud lead the field in strong London sales
LONDON. The contemporary art market season has drawn to its close with a series of three consecutive evening auctions, which confirm that significant works by a broad list of fashionable artists are continuing to attract powerful bidding competition. New auction records were established at Phillips de Pury on 29 June for Franz West, Ugo Rondinone, Wilhelm Sasnal, Grayson Perry, Banks Violette and Elmgreen & Dragset (despite a third of lots not selling). At Christie’s on 30 June records were set for Nicolas de Stael, Michael Andrews, Gilbert & George, Yan Pei-Ming and Karin Mamma Anderson; and at Sotheby’s on 1 July for Domenico Gnoli, Frank Auerbach, Bridget Riley, Martial Raysse, Richard Prince, Marlene Dumas, Antony Gormley and Rachel Whiteread.
13 June - German Museum Under Fire for Ceding Control of Exhibitions to Dealers and Collectors
LONDON. Leipzig’s Gallery of Contemporary Art (GfZK) is facing strong criticism for hosting a series of exhibitions which gives dealers, collectors and corporate art collections complete freedom to display their works as they wish. Chris Dercon, the director of the Haus der Kunst in Munich, describes the initiative, entitled “Carte Blanche”, as “exactly the kind of thing that we do not need in public galleries”.
