Presseurop |

Contemporary art | Paintbrush factory brightens Cluj-Napoca (România libera, Bucharest)

Fri, 04 May 2012 13:00:27 +0100

Located in a former factory in Cluj, the Transylvanian capital, a contemporary art centre managed by several galleries and artists' collectives is trying to break into the European art scene. (Article)

Hungary | Orbán makes an exhibition of himself (SME, Bratislava)

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:02:48 +0100

Asserting national values is central to the political project of the Hungarian PM. Since the start of the year, fifteen paintings, specially commissioned for an exhibition in the Castle of Buda, have been putting this ambition on show. (Article)

Greece | Athens Biennale, the crisis as art (Expressen, Stockholm)

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 15:30:35 +0100

In a country destabilised by the crisis, the 3rd Athens Biennale contemporary art festival has been largely overlooked. However, a Swedish journalist argues that the exhibition offers an opportunity to appreciate the urgency of the moment. (Article)

Ideas | Never mind the cave paintings, here's the Sex Pistols (The Guardian, London)

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 17:00:47 +0100

Is the graffiti left by the 1970’s punk band in London as worthy of humanity as prehistoric cave art? A British archeologist believes so, seeing on these walls the end of faith in "human progress" initiated by our ancestors. (Article)

Czech Republic | Instant repatriation for national artworks

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 12:28:32 +0100

“State repatriates artworks amid ownership fears,” headlines Lidové noviny. On 31 May, following the seizure of several paintings by authorities in France and Austria, the Minister for Culture has decided to repatriate artworks on loan to foreign galeries, mainly located in Vienna and Paris. The application to have the paintings seized was filed by a Czech-Swiss businessman who, in the wake of the most protracted commercial case in the history of the Czech Republic, obtained a ruling that the government should pay him more than 8 billion crowns (€326 million). The businessman is the owner of Diag Human, a company that was awarded damages on the foot of complaint about unfair competition for a blood plasma processing deal – a judgement that is still under appeal. “It is in the state’s interest to sort out this case as quickly as possible, because the sum involved, which is subject to moratory interest, is increasing every day,” remarks the Prague daily.

(News in brief)

Museums | Antwerp bets on the MAS (De Morgen, Brussels)

Fri, 20 May 2011 16:29:44 +0100

Inaugurated on 17 May, Antwerp’s new metropolitan museum has become a talking point for its architecture. But will it, as its designers have hoped, bring lasting change to the Flemish city? Planner and columnist Filip Canfyn is not convinced. (Article)

Museums | See Da Vinci in 4 min. 17 sec.? (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Frankfurt)

Wed, 18 May 2011 15:34:46 +0100

Once upon a time the visitor to a museum who only glanced at the canvases was a laughing stock. Now he must be hurried on through – anything else would clog the turnstiles. England’s art world is getting into the fast food business, laments Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. (Article)

Contemporary art | Fundamentalists attack Christ artwork

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 12:32:42 +0100

“Whackos hammer Piss Christ,” headlines Libération, in the wake of the destruction of a photograph showing a plastic crucifix submerged in urine by Andres Serrano. The attack, which was perpetrated by fundamentalist Catholics using hammers and screwdrivers, took place in the Avignon Museum of Contemporary Art. “Notwithstanding its provocative title, Piss Christ is not a trashy piece of work but a beautiful red and gold photograph,” remarks the daily – a view not shared by the archbishop of Avignon, His Grace Jean-Pierre Cattenoz who, a few weeks ago, called for this “rubbish” to be removed.” On 16 April, a crowd of 500 people took part in a Front National protest in front of the museum to demand that the work be taken down. Piss Christ, which was produced in the 1980s, has already been the target of a number of attacks by Neo-Nazis: most recently in Sweden in 2007.

(News in brief)

A city in Europe | Nostalgia for Bucharest's golden age (Dilema Veche, Bucharest)

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 16:12:33 +0100

Nicknamed "Little Paris", the Romanian capital is getting a little uglier every day, carved up by building sites that are as mammoth as they are meaningless. But some parts of the town have retained their charm, and it wouldn’t take much to give the city a human face. The architect Teodor Frolu reports. (Article)

Architecture | Souto de Moura wins Pritzker Prize

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 13:03:51 +0100

"Portuguese architecture’s triumph", exults Público, honouring the Oporto architect Eduardo Souto de Moura, winner of 2011 Pritzker Prize – architecture’s highest distinction. The first Portuguese architect to garner the prize since Álvaro Siza in 1992. The jury acclaimed Souto de Moura's work for its "apparent formal simplicity" that "weaves together complex references to the characteristics of the region, landscape, site, and wider architectural history". Having narrowly missed out on the Mies van der Rohe European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture for Braga Stadium, Souto Moura is also known Monastery of Santa Maria do Bouro, Porto`s underground and Casa das Histórias that houses the painter Paula Rego's collection.

(News in brief)

European of the week | The riddle of Princess Hijab (The Guardian, London)

Fri, 12 Nov 2010 11:56:53 +0100

In the midst of heated debates about national identity and burqa bans, French graffiti artist Princess Hijab’s ad-busting interventions on Paris metro fashion ads now have a worldwide audience. But who is she? And does it matter if she’s not even a she? (Article)

Exhibitions | Art - the bigger the better (De Standaard, Brussels)

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 14:08:46 +0100

An immense inflatable mannequin, thousands of empty cans, a 17-metre high tower: several of the works currently on display in Belgium point to the trend for gigantism in contemporary art. (Article)

Counterfeiting | Fake is absolutely fabulous (The Daily Telegraph, London)

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 10:35:32 +0100

A new European Union-funded report has declared that buying counterfeited designer goods can benefit consumers and the companies whose brands are being ripped off. (Article)

Crime | The art thieves stalking Europe (International Herald Tribune, Paris)

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 12:00:45 +0100

The vulnerability of museums and high-end art owners to costly thefts has been a whispered concern in France for years, but two events here are forcing the issue into the open. (Article)

Art world | Ego-seums are coming to Europe (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Frankfurt)

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 16:28:37 +0100

A rift is emerging in the European art scene: as public establishments languish under budget cuts, private museums are booming. But the latter are generally showcases for self-serving oligarchs, warns the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Museums, places where our society portrays and projects itself, may be becoming an endangered species. (Article)

Exhibition | From east to west, art remains political (Dilema Veche, Bucharest)

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 14:52:34 +0100

In Paris the "Les Promesses du Passé" (Promises of the past) exhibition examines the development of artistic creation and the continuing ambition to change the world in a Europe marked by the Iron Curtain and the East-West divide. (Article)

France | Modern art goes to the provinces

Tue, 11 May 2010 13:10:56 +0100

Tomorrow's inauguration of the Centre Pompidou-Metz in eastern France will mark "the first ever decentralisation of a major cultural institution in France," reports La Croix. At the same time, the move will not have a negative impact on the accessibility of art in the French capital, because, as the daily notes, "the new facility will provide a venue for the exhibition in the provinces of the vast modern art collections maintained by the over-burdened Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, which is currently forced to keep large numbers of works in storage." For Le Monde, the new museum "strikes a note of optimism for France's cultural industry, which is beset by funding troubles." With a forecasted 200,000 visits per year, the centre in Metz "will put paid to the idea that prestigious works of art should only be kept in capital cities," adds La Croix. The inaugural exhibition Masterpieces? (from 12 May to 25 October), which Le Monde hails as "an inspiration for a critique of museums and a rereading of history" will feature 800 works of modern art, including 700 on loan from the Centre Georges Pompidou.

(News in brief)

European of the Week | Antonio Presti, anti-Mafia patron of the arts (El País, Madrid)

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 16:51:18 +0100

For 30 years this Sicilian entrepreneur has been lavishing the bulk of his fortune on artistic projects. Defying convention, corruption and the Cosa Nostra, he seeks to "help people respect their patch” and “rediscover their identity" through art. (Article)

Photography | Quest for Europe's natural treasures (De Morgen, Brussels)

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 15:22:23 +0100

For over a year, 69 photographers were sent out on “The Great Quest” for Europe’s flora and fauna. The object of project Wild Wonders of Europe: to reveal the continent’s biodiversity to the world. (Article)

Architecture | Scaling down on starchitects (Trouw, Amsterdam)

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 17:22:12 +0100

The days of ostentatious architecture by star architects are at an end. Under the influence of the economic crisis, budgets have been pared down and vast projects have been set aside to be replaced by more modest buildings. A positive change, which will force architects to seek solutions to problems that they themselves have helped to create, argues director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi), Ole Bouman. (Article)

Denmark | Ni Hao Little Mermaid

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 15:05:20 +0100

The Little Mermaid, Copenhagen's most visited monument, is set to leave her rock facing the port of Copenhagen for a trip to Shanghai, where she will grace the Danish pavilion at Expo 2010. On the occasion of her departure, Politiken reminds its readers that the city's, and indeed the country's, most famous symbol, began life as a character in the eponymous story by Hans Christian Andersen – a fact that no one has bothered to communicate to conservative Economy and Business Affairs Minister Brian Mikkelsen, who believes that the likeness of the love-lorn sea nymph will "tell the story of our welfare state and Danish industry in Shanghai." As the centre-left daily explains, the tale of the Little Mermaid makes no mention of Denmark or Danes. Her fame is due to the fact that she was selected as a national symbol by the Danish tourist board, which wanted to present Denmark as the homeland of fairy tales.

(News in brief)

Netherlands | Peter Stuyvesant artwork makes a packet

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:42:22 +0100

On 8 March, 163 works of modern art by artists such as Appel, Corneille, Santomaso and Morellet – which used to grace the walls of the Peter Stuyvesant cigarette factory in Zevenaar – were sold at auction in Amsterdam, reports the front page of De Volkskrant. The sale, organized by Sotheby’s, made 13.5 million euros – a record for modern art in the Netherlands. The star of the show was the painting Dinosaurierei (dinosaur egg) by German artist Martin Kippenberger, which fetched a price of more than a million euros including commission. The collection was of such high quality that "on its own, it could have constituted a good basis for an art museum focusing on works from the latter half of the 20th century," points out Dirk Limburg in his cultural blog on the NRC Handelsblad website. The journalist regretfully adds that it included 25 masterpieces that he would have loved "to see and see again on repeated visits to modern art museums."

(News in brief)

A town in Europe | The Ruhr - from coal to culture (Der Spiegel, Hamburg)

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:53:47 +0100

The Ruhr region has seen the rise and fall of the coal industry in the space of 170 years. Now, during its stint as 2010 European Capital of Culture, it aims to complete its modernisation process. But its cities are running out of funds, reports Der Spiegel. (Article)

Communication | Europe doesn't have to look cheesy (NRC Handelsblad, Rotterdam)

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 18:21:59 +0100

Brussels is the source of numerous poorly designed communications. On the Internet, and in brochures and logos, European institutions appear to be incapable of showing any imagination. A Dutch journalist makes the case for making more frequent calls to creative professionals, with interesting results. (Article)

Internet | Fine art of virtual museums (De Volkskrant, Amsterdam)

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:30:27 +0100

The success of the Tate Britain website has shown how the Internet can promote collections and stored works in major museums and attract a new generation of visitors. (Article)

Denmark | Muhammad caricaturist for Haiti

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:28:42 +0100

Danish public television channel TV2 has asked cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, author of the controversial Muhammad caricatures in 2005, to produce a drawing to be auctioned off for the benefit of child victims of the earthquake in Haiti. But the plan nearly aborted, recounts Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, when the online auction house Lauritz.com refused to sell the work. Lauritz.com, which justified its refusal in the interest of staff security – Westergaard has in fact narrowly escaped several assassination attempts –, has been widely criticised, even by the Danish government. Now the drawing has finally been put on the market by the Draupner gallery, which has been working with Westergaard for many years. The highest bid to date comes to 75,000 Danish crowns (€10,000).

(News in brief)

Netherlands | Rebuilding the forbidden city (De Volkskrant, Amsterdam)

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 14:48:40 +0100

On the immense site of what was once the "Philips forbidden city," work is underway to build a new neighbourhood. The development plan, the largest of its kind in the Netherlands, will bring new life to a town that has always identified itself with the electronics group. (Article)

Czech Republic | Giving the Velvet Revolution the finger

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:36:24 +0100

The people of Prague who turned out to leave candles commemorating the end of the Communist regime hardly saw anything but the flickering flames. But the bronze plaque on “National Avenue” to commemorate the 1989 Velvet Revolution had undergone a sea change shortly after the official ceremonies this past 17 November. The outstretched fingers symbolising the people’s victory were now hemmed in on either side by other hands to put November 1989 in an historical continuum: on the left, Hitler salutes in memory of the Nazi occupation of November 1939; on the right, hands “giving the finger” to 1989 twenty years later.

On the website of Czech weekly Týden, Roman Týc, a member of the Ztohoven artists collective and the sculptor of this bronze entitled “There’s nothing to celebrate” explains: “Czechs threw up their arms during German occupation, and they’re still doing it today. The gesture of victory in ’89 doesn’t seem apposite any more, and even the ex-prime minister Mirek Topolánek [he did it in parliament] and Karel Gott [pop singer who never abjured the Communist regime] have given the finger in public.” In the meantime the police have put two old dish-cloths on the offending hands.

Photo: Karel Šanda/Tyden.cz

(News in brief)

After "89 | Wall comes down in Big Apple

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:06:56 +0100

“The ‘autumn of nations’, as the 1989 revolutions have been nicknamed, that led to the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, is the subject of a huge festival in New York,” reports Cotidianul. Organised by the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts in association with various European cultural organisations, “Performing Revolution in Central and Eastern Europe”, or PerfRevolution for short, kicked off on 6 November to run to 20 March 2010. Artists have been invited from a number of ex-communist countries, including the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany, Poland, ex-Yugoslavia, Romania and Hungary. The focus, adds the Romanian daily, is on ways in which the performing arts tried, and sometimes succeeded, in circumventing communist censorship.

(News in brief)

Fashion | High-tech and ethically right-on (Cafebabel.com, Paris)

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:38:30 +0100

In 2030, we may well be wearing clothes that offer a new level of physical well-being by adapting to the ambient temperature, and at the same time, respect our political convictions. Cafebabel.com reports on a heady blend of technology and ideology. (Article)

Art | Getting to know the real Van Gogh

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:27:34 +0100

After 15 years’ research into Vincent van Gogh’s letters, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and the Huygens Institute in The Hague are now putting out a book entitled Vincent Van Gogh – The Letters: The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition. There was no dearth of material, says Trouw: the Dutch post-impressionist left behind 902 letters, each of which has now been re-dissected and re-analysed to reveal the “real” Vincent in a six-volume set of over 2,000 pages, published in Dutch, English (2164 pp. plus a CD-ROM, published by Thames & Hudson) and French versions. This painstaking scrutiny has yielded “a far more nuanced image” of the painter than the myth that has grown up around him over time. Apparently, “Van Gogh was not as poor or as mad as all that, and he did enjoy some recognition, even if not from the public at large,” explains the Amsterdam daily. The research on his letters, “those literary gems” with their wealth of biblical, literary and artistic allusions, has also given rise to the creation of a multilingual scholarly website: www.vangoghletters.org. From 8 October all the letters will be accessible online, in facsimile and in English translation, replete with a sophisticated search engine for in-depth exploration of Vincent’s epistolary universe.

(News in brief)

Old masters | Antwerp identifies lost Rembrandt

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 12:32:56 +0100

"The painting has been there since 1886, but it is only now that the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Antwerp is 100% sure: the portrait of Eleazar Swalmius is an authentic Rembrandt." So leads De Morgen's culture page. The painting of the preacher, which had been part of a collection belonging to Louis XIV's brother, the Duke of Orléans, was bought by the museum for 200,000 francs (the equivalent of 5,000 euros). For many years it was attributed to Govert Flinck, another painter of the period, and at one point was even placed in storage. An anonymous Dutch businessman financed the recent restoration, which removed several layers of yellowed varnish to reveal "a magnificent and dazzling work." Fresh evidence from x-rays, and more research on the signature and the threads used in the canvas have left no doubt about its authenticity. Dutch art historian and Rembrandt expert Ernst van de Wetering explains that "the freedom in the structuring of the image, the manner of painting and the temperament are typically Rembrandt."

(News in brief)

Contemporary art | Venice Biennale, a geopolitical carnival (Télérama, Paris)

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:43:26 +0100

Despite being one of the most prestigious shows in the international contemporary art calendar, the Venice Biennale does not attract a great deal of local support in the City of the Doges. Now that guest countries have co-opted it as a pretext to display wealth and influence, French weekly Télérama argues that the event's significance is increasingly geopolitical rather than artistic. (Article)

Profile | Notes from the cartoon underground (Cafebabel.com, Paris)

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:49:08 +0100

Italian cartoonist Gianluca Costantini's work is ever-changing. Founder of the Kamikaze Festival for cartoonists and editor of Inguine Mah!gazine, he explains to cafebabel.com about trials and tribulations of an artist's life both in the underground and mainstream. (Article)

Cultural heritage | Acropolis now (I Kathimerini, Athens)

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:17:35 +0100

June 20, Athens inaugurates with great fanfare the New Acropolis Museum. This avant garde building has provoked controversy and has reignited the long running dispute between Greece and Britain about the ownership of the Elgin Marbles. (Article)

Exhibition | Artist genitals beat Venice censor

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:25:34 +0100

Vengeance is sweet. An exhibition entitled "100 artists' genitals" by Belgian artist Jacques Charlie, banned by the recent Venice Biennale, will be finally up and running at the Palais des Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. Belgian newspaper Le Soir explains that Jacques Charlier has also planned further shows in Namur and Antwerp in Belgium, and also in other European cities like Belgrade, Bergen (Norway), Linz (Austria) Luxembourg and Metz (France). Chosen to represent the French-speaking community at Belgium's pavillion in Venice, the artist's censored work has caused much ink to flow in the Belgian press. "100 artists' genitals" is a series of drawings of imaginary genitals of well known artists, alive or dead, such as Christo's, wrapped in string.

(News in brief)

Art controversy | Czech chuckle at cheeky Černý

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:47:16 +0100

From having caused a great deal of controversy, Entropa no longer shocks anyone. The work of Czech artist David Černý, an illustration of the EU in the form of giant sculpture portraying each member state according to its national stereotype, has left European Council HQ in Brussels to be exhibited in Prague. Having provoked the wrath of the Slovaks and the Bulgarians who respectively objected to being wrapped up in Hungarian salami and depicted as Turkish style toilets, the Czechs have given Entropa a mirthful reception.

"David Černý didn't make Entropa. I did it with Jiří Paroubek (Czech Republic's Social Democrat leader) to damage our country's image," chuckled Václav Havel during the opening, referring to the fall of Paroubek's governement in the middle of the Czech Republic's six month presidency of the Union. The former president and playwright, Mladá Fronta DNES reports, explained that mystification (Černý had put it out that the work was a collective creation of 27 European artists) and provocation are part and parcel of "modern art, post-modern, and post-post-modern.

(News in brief)

Musées | Like art? I'll need some ID

Thu, 28 May 2009 13:28:01 +0100

Since April 4th, entrance to museums and national monuments in France is free for the under 26s…as long as they’re EU citizens. SOS Racisme has lodged an appeal at the French Council of State to protest this decision it considers discriminatory, Libération reports. “Why has Christine Albanel (the Minister of Culture) embraced National Front ideology with its communitarian preferences?” wonders Samuel Thomas, vice-president of the anti-racist organisation in the op-ed pages of the left-wing daily. This measure, he believes, runs contrary to “the development of a common culture promoting integration of foreign residents in France”, breaks with the “principle of equality” and risks an increase at museum entrances of délits de faciès, a French term which literarily means “facial misdemeanour”, in this case, arbitrary ID checks based upon skin colour.

(News in brief)