Latest news with #artmuseum
BBC News
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Spandau Ballet house celebrates 100 years as museum
An artist's home - that also starred in the video for Spandau Ballet's 1983 hit Gold - is celebrating 100 years as a public museum. Painter Frederic Leighton commissioned the building of Leighton House in 1864 and when he died in 1896 his collection was sold, but the house were allowed in from 1900, and when it was taken over by the council in 1926 its future as a public museum was secured. Now people are being asked to share their memories of the place between then and now for "Leighton House: A Journey Through 100 Years". Leighton intended to create a purpose-built studio-house where he could work and friend George Aitchison, whom he met in Rome more than a decade earlier, was employed as the project lasted more than 30 years, and the house was designed as a showcase for artistic taste - and to entertain and impress artists, collectors and 1869 and 1895 it was transformed by a series of extensions. During World War Two the house was damaged by bombing and remained closed until the early funds for restoration saw interiors whitewashed, floors stripped, and fluorescent lighting put in. This neutralised much of what remained of Leighton's decoration, which has now been restored to its jewel-like tones and Middle Eastern included re-gilding the dome and restoring the ziggurats on the roof of the Arab Hall. The centenary programme will feature several key exhibitions and the museum is asking the public to share their and Chelsea councillor, Kim Taylor-Smith, encouraged people to take part, dubbing Leighton House "Kensington's own National Treasure".Senior curator of the council's museums, Daniel Robbins, said the programme "brings together every aspect of Leighton House that makes it distinctive, significant and still relevant 100 years later".
The Guardian
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Modern marvel or concrete ‘blob'? Inside LA's divisive $700m art gallery
As Los Angeles county's new $720m art museum building nears completion, it's still haunted by a single, vexing question: how do you hang art in a gallery where every single wall is made of massive slabs of concrete? Designed by Peter Zumthor, a prizewinning Swiss architect, the new building at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma) has sparked controversy in the art world since its initial designs were made public in 2013. The monolithic concrete structure, which has been compared with a freeway overpass and an 'amoebic pancake', was built to replace four older Lacma buildings, which were torn down to make room for the stylish newcomer. The building will hold a rotating selection from Lacma's permanent collection of more than 150,000 art objects from around the globe. The creation of the new gallery space has been marked by unusual drama and contention. One of Lacma's major donors publicly broke with the museum as a result of conflict over how the permanent collection would be displayed. The construction site, which borders the LaBrea Tar Pits, is famous for the ancient fossils preserved in bubbling tar. Building a gigantic concrete building on tar-filled land in an earthquake-prone region caused additional costs and delays: thirteen sabre tooth tiger skulls were uncovered during construction. As the estimated cost of the project rose by nearly $100m, Zumthor, the star architect, publicly distanced himself from the results, saying he had repeatedly been forced to 'reduce' his design, and that the experience had convinced him to never again work in the US. The building, which was initially conceived as an all-black structure evoking a tar pit or an oil spill, will now remain the raw gray of unadorned concrete. On Thursday, Lacma's CEO, Michael Govan, who has championed the divisive project for nearly two decades, gave an early tour of the new space to a group of journalists, including some who have publicly criticized the building's design. The building, named the David Geffen Galleries after its largest donor, will officially open in 2026. Outside, the structure resembles a gleaming dinosaur egg on squat concrete legs, with a long tail of a gallery that curves over Wilshire Boulevard, allowing visitors to enter on both sides of the street. Inside, the building is all hulking concrete surfaces and curving walls of windows that let in the southern California sun – a striking but controversial choice for a museum, since paintings and drawings are typically kept out of direct sunlight. Govan defended the wraparound windows as essential for giving the museum a sense of place; he wanted visitors to 'know you're in Los Angeles – these collections are in Los Angeles'. The CEO led a crowd of journalists into one of the gallery's multiple entrances, which is at the top of a daunting flight of concrete steps. The museum CEO loves stairs, he explained: the only exercise he gets is climbing Lacma building stairs and pacing while talking on the phone. As Govan walked the journalists through the sinuous galleries, he was energetic, full of quotations and anecdotes about Zumthor, his star architect. Zumthor was not there. Govan noted that the sleek leather benches in the sunlit galleries were only there as temporary place-holders: Zumthor had requested red-brown leather benches stuffed with duck feathers, which had yet to be installed. When asked to respond to the many criticisms of the project, the CEO was defensive. The 'whole idea' of the space 'was a new idea, right, so you can't – no one's ever experienced this before', he said. 'That is the spirit of experimentation. That proof will be in the final results – of whether it works, and how the public responds to it.' Opposition to Zumthor's evolving design had been fierce. Some of the most dedicated critics of 'the blob' hated it so much they held an alternative design competition and bought full-page newspaper ads in protest. But to Govan, his building is not just a new gallery: it's a fundamentally new way of experiencing art, an attempt 'to reinvent art history for the 21st century'. The space was designed to be 'non-hierarchical', Govan said. He did not want to organize the museum's permanent collection by time period or geography or type of art: he recalled telling Zumthor that 'I don't want anyone in the front.' In practice, this means that all of the gallery space is on a single floor, and the layout of the rooms is unpredictable and confusing to navigate. 'The building itself really avoids linear histories or linear paths,' Govan said. 'The remit was to make something that was more like wandering in a park, where you curate your own journey.' When the gallery opens in 2026, Govan said, the first show will be organized around the 'muse' of four different oceans, including a mix of Mediterranean art, and a Pacific collection that brings together California artists with those from Japan. Zumthor and Govan's vision has its prominent defenders. Brad Pitt showed up to a public meeting in 2019 to praise Zumthor's 'mastery of light and shadow', and spoke in favor of the new Lacma building for so long that an elected official told him to 'wrap it up'. Architectural Digest, in a preview piece in June, hailed the new building's 'curatorial provocations and challenges to the shibboleths of the art world'. But while the journalists on Friday's preview tour were polite, their questions made clear that the criticisms of Lacma's new building were not going away. The practicality of the concrete walls has remained front and center in the debates, including in a series of eviscerating columns by Los Angeles Times' art critic Christopher Knight, who won a 2020 Pulitzer prize for his critiques of a building plan funded in part by $125m in taxpayer dollars. 'How do you hang paintings on concrete walls?' Knight asked in 2019, calling the idea 'nutty'. He nicknamed Zumthor's building 'the Incredible Shrinking Museum', noting that the amount of planned gallery space in the new structure had shrunk throughout the planning process, resulting in a smaller amount of total display space than in the razed buildings it replaced. Asked again on Friday about how curators would hang art on the minimalist concrete, Govan was breezy: 'You can just drill right into the walls,' he said. 'It's very sturdy–you can hang Assyrian relief.' When they needed to change the exhibit, Govan said, they would simply fill up those holes and drill new ones. He noted that there were several patches on the walls already. Someone asked if constantly drilling and patching the walls would destroy the beautiful minimalist surface of the concrete. 'It's supposed to be like a good pair of old blue jeans that gets better with time,' the CEO said. And he believed in the new gallery's longevity. Earlier, he had said, buoyantly, 'This building could last 500 years.'
The Guardian
28-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Modern marvel or concrete ‘blob'? Inside LA's divisive $700m art gallery
As Los Angeles county's new $720m art museum building nears completion, it's still haunted by a single, vexing question: how do you hang art in a gallery where every single wall is made of massive slabs of concrete? Designed by Peter Zumthor, a prizewinning Swiss architect, the new building at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma) has sparked controversy in the art world since its initial designs were made public in 2013. The monolithic concrete structure, which has been compared with a freeway overpass and an 'amoebic pancake', was built to replace four older Lacma buildings, which were torn down to make room for the stylish newcomer. The building will hold a rotating selection from Lacma's permanent collection of more than 150,000 art objects from around the globe. The creation of the new gallery space has been marked by unusual drama and contention. One of Lacma's major donors publicly broke with the museum as a result of conflict over how the permanent collection would be displayed. The construction site, which borders the LaBrea Tar Pits, is famous for the ancient fossils preserved in bubbling tar. Building a gigantic concrete building on tar-filled land in an earthquake-prone region caused additional costs and delays: thirteen sabre tooth tiger skulls were uncovered during construction. As the estimated cost of the project rose by nearly $100m, Zumthor, the star architect, publicly distanced himself from the results, saying he had repeatedly been forced to 'reduce' his design, and that the experience had convinced him to never again work in the US. The building, which was initially conceived as an all-black structure evoking a tar pit or an oil spill, will now remain the raw gray of unadorned concrete. On Thursday, Lacma's CEO, Michael Govan, who has championed the divisive project for nearly two decades, gave an early tour of the new space to a group of journalists, including some who have publicly criticized the building's design. The building, named the David Geffen Galleries after its largest donor, will officially open in 2026. Outside, the structure resembles a gleaming dinosaur egg on squat concrete legs, with a long tail of a gallery that curves over Wilshire Boulevard, allowing visitors to enter on both sides of the street. Inside, the building is all hulking concrete surfaces and curving walls of windows that let in the southern California sun – a striking but controversial choice for a museum, since paintings and drawings are typically kept out of direct sunlight. Govan defended the wraparound windows as essential for giving the museum a sense of place; he wanted visitors to 'know you're in Los Angeles – these collections are in Los Angeles'. The CEO led a crowd of journalists into one of the gallery's multiple entrances, which is at the top of a daunting flight of concrete steps. The museum CEO loves stairs, he explained: the only exercise he gets is climbing Lacma building stairs and pacing while talking on the phone. As Govan walked the journalists through the sinuous galleries, he was energetic, full of quotations and anecdotes about Zumthor, his star architect. Zumthor was not there. Govan noted that the sleek leather benches in the sunlit galleries were only there as temporary place-holders: Zumthor had requested red-brown leather benches stuffed with duck feathers, which had yet to be installed. When asked to respond to the many criticisms of the project, the CEO was defensive. The 'whole idea' of the space 'was a new idea, right, so you can't – no one's ever experienced this before', he said. 'That is the spirit of experimentation. That proof will be in the final results – of whether it works, and how the public responds to it.' Opposition to Zumthor's evolving design had been fierce. Some of the most dedicated critics of 'the blob' hated it so much they held an alternative design competition and bought full-page newspaper ads in protest. But to Govan, his building is not just a new gallery: it's a fundamentally new way of experiencing art, an attempt 'to reinvent art history for the 21st century'. The space was designed to be 'non-hierarchical', Govan said. He did not want to organize the museum's permanent collection by time period or geography or type of art: he recalled telling Zumthor that 'I don't want anyone in the front.' In practice, this means that all of the gallery space is on a single floor, and the layout of the rooms is unpredictable and confusing to navigate. 'The building itself really avoids linear histories or linear paths,' Govan said. 'The remit was to make something that was more like wandering in a park, where you curate your own journey.' When the gallery opens in 2026, Govan said, the first show will be organized around the 'muse' of four different oceans, including a mix of Mediterranean art, and a Pacific collection that brings together California artists with those from Japan. Zumthor and Govan's vision has its prominent defenders. Brad Pitt showed up to a public meeting in 2019 to praise Zumthor's 'mastery of light and shadow', and spoke in favor of the new Lacma building for so long that an elected official told him to 'wrap it up'. Architectural Digest, in a preview piece in June, hailed the new building's 'curatorial provocations and challenges to the shibboleths of the art world'. But while the journalists on Friday's preview tour were polite, their questions made clear that the criticisms of Lacma's new building were not going away. The practicality of the concrete walls has remained front and center in the debates, including in a series of eviscerating columns by Los Angeles Times' art critic Christopher Knight, who won a 2020 Pulitzer prize for his critiques of a building plan funded in part by $125m in taxpayer dollars. 'How do you hang paintings on concrete walls?' Knight asked in 2019, calling the idea 'nutty'. He nicknamed Zumthor's building 'the Incredible Shrinking Museum', noting that the amount of planned gallery space in the new structure had shrunk throughout the planning process, resulting in a smaller amount of total display space than in the razed buildings it replaced. Asked again on Friday about how curators would hang art on the minimalist concrete, Govan was breezy: 'You can just drill right into the walls,' he said. 'It's very sturdy–you can hang Assyrian relief.' When they needed to change the exhibit, Govan said, they would simply fill up those holes and drill new ones. He noted that there were several patches on the walls already. Someone asked if constantly drilling and patching the walls would destroy the beautiful minimalist surface of the concrete. 'It's supposed to be like a good pair of old blue jeans that gets better with time,' the CEO said. And he believed in the new gallery's longevity. Earlier, he had said, buoyantly, 'This building could last 500 years.'
National Post
24-06-2025
- Entertainment
- National Post
At the Frick in New York, a grand Gilded Age collection shows its intimate side
Article content NEW YORK — For decades, visitors to the Frick Collection passed a magnificent staircase with an ornamental railing and giant candelabras on the landing, flanking an elaborate screen hiding the museum's pipe organ. The second floor of the old mansion on Fifth Avenue was where the Frick family once carried on with domestic life, above the monumental rooms of the ground floor, which housed one of the finest collections of art ever assembled by a private individual. Article content Article content What was up those stairs? The office of the museum's director, and smaller, more humanly scaled rooms that had been off-limits to the public since the mansion opened as a museum in 1935. After a four-year, $220 million renovation, the second floor is now open for the first time, revealing more of the Frick's rich holdings, including portrait medals, timepieces and ceramics, along with smaller paintings that live more happily in intimate rooms with lower ceilings. Article content Article content The renovation also added an underground concert and lecture hall, a new cafe, a larger reception area, conservation labs, and some 30 percent more gallery space, including a more gracious and amenable venue for temporary exhibitions. It is a thorough refresh and update, including greater accessibility for people with mobility issues, yet it has been done with a light hand and a deft sense of the building's history, design and materials. Everything that is essential to the Frick – the art, the architecture and the time-warp sense that you have left the modern world and the bustling city for a serene fantasy of the late Gilded Age – is the same as it always was. But it is now easier to navigate and there is more to explore. Article content Article content Article content The opening of the second floor offers visitors much more than just additional gallery space. This was the domestic habitat of the Frick family, including the Breakfast Room with its 19th-century French landscapes (an early collecting passion of Henry Clay Frick) and the Boucher Room, which was part of a suite used by Frick's wife, Adelaide. The upper-level chambers are surprisingly modest, sumptuously appointed but not much larger than one would find in a typical McMansion today. They also add a complex dynamic to the museum: They humanize the building, but they also foreground the collectors, especially Frick himself, who was in many ways an odious figure. Article content Frick was a union buster and in 1892, he hired hundreds of Pinkerton detectives – a private army of thugs with guns – to quell a strike against a Pennsylvania steel mill. Ten men were killed, dozens injured, and the situation became so inflamed that the state militia was called in to break the workers' resistance. Frick, who made a fortune supplying the coal derivative known as coke to Andrew Carnegie's steel company, where Frick later served as chairman, was left with a tattered reputation for years. Only amnesia – and art – could repair the damage, generations later.
The Independent
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Tourists can expect to pay more to see the Mona Lisa as Louvre reveals plans for extra fee
Visitors wanting to see Leonardo da Vinci 's Mona Lisa can expect to pay a supplement in addition to the basic Musée du Louvre entrance fee as part of the site's redevelopment, the museum's director has said. France's National Commission for Heritage and Architecture has now approved the heritage specifications for a major €800 million renovation of the storied museum. As part of this, museum director Laurence des Cars confirmed the iconic painting is set to get its own 3,000 sq m 'Mona Lisa trail' situated beneath the Cour Carrée. She said that the new gallery 'will enable visitors not only to contemplate Mona Lisa – a complicated task at the moment – but also to understand her through other displays on her history'. The art historian told Le Figaro that it would be 'of great quality, on a par with the global masterpiece that will be present in it'. Following the redevelopment, visitors wishing to see the Mona Lisa would be required to purchase two tickets: a general entrance fee to the museum and a second to enter the new Mona Lisa gallery. It is not yet known how much this additional fee will be. General entrance fees to the Louvre will cost €30 (£25.50) for non-EU citizens, while European visitors will be able to visit for the discounted rate of €22 (£19). The launch of a new architectural competition on 27 June will see applicants submitting their vision for the new trail, in addition to a new exhibition hall and entrance area. Relieving congestion around the Mona Lisa is a major factor in the redevelopment, in addition to a cultural reimagining of the site. 'It will offer new stories about the Louvre's universal vocation,' Ms Cars said. 'We need to think about our displays and give our masterpieces space to breathe.' The plan will also involve a general upgrade of the cramped and damp museum, plus the opening of new entrances to shorten waiting times. Ms Cars said the redevelopment is expected to be complete by 2031. The Louvre – the world's most visited museum – attracted 8.7 million people in 2024 and has struggled with its popularity. While daily visitor numbers have been capped to 30,000, staff claim visitor flow is badly managed and that crowds are becoming less respectful towards the museum and its workers.
