Dear News-Hungry Colleagues,
For some reason I had not been receiving these weekly news digests for quite a while, but here is a new one.  I also have a recent one from the German speaking world, and it will follow shortly.

Cheers,

-- jack

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
Jack Robertson  ||  Foundation Librarian
Jefferson Library  || Thomas Jefferson Foundation
PO Box 316  Charlottesville, VA  22902
(434) 984-7545  ||  http://www.monticello.org/library 


-----Original Message-----
From: H-Net Network for Museum Professionals [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of H-Museum (Marra)
Sent: Monday, November 22, 2004 2:12 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: NEWS: H-Museum News Digest (USA, UK)


[Editor's note: The following articles are published in American and British newspapers and magazines. The H-MUSEUM NEWS DIGEST service is made available by the editorial staff of H-Museum <[log in to unmask]>.]

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H-MUSEUM NEWS DIGEST (USA, UK)
November 15 - November 21, 2004

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-- November 15
++ American newspapers
Defending Duccio
The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art was only doing its job when it recently acquired a Renaissance painting for more than $45 million (International Herald Tribune) http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?warning=nyt

++ British newspapers
Egypt to scan mummy for clues
Egypt plans to x-ray the mummy of Tutankhamun to find out what killed the king who ruled Egypt more than 3,000 years ago and died while only a teenager (The Guardian) http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,,1351961,00.html

-- November 16
++ American newspapers
At Modern, Architect Is Content (Mostly)
Yoshio Taniguchi is a pessimist by nature. Each time Mr. Taniguchi, the architect, visits one of his buildings, he sees every compromise he had to make, every flaw he would like to fix. As he strolled recently through the newly expanded Museum of Modern Art, his first project outside Japan, it was no different (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/16/arts/design/16tani.html

Savoring the view he drew
Yoshio Taniguchi welcomes the debut of his redesigned MoMA
(Los Angeles Times) http://www.calendarlive.com/galleriesandmuseums/cl-et-taniguchi16nov16,2,6904694.story?coll=cl-art

Museum to buy works by Jasper Johns
The Greenville County Museum of Art plans to spend $5.8 million on works by pop/Abstract Expressionist artist Jasper Johns. It is one of the largest art acquisitions by any museum in the Southern region (Los Angeles Times) http://www.calendarlive.com/galleriesandmuseums/cl-et-jasper16nov16,2,1895145.story?coll=cl-art

++ British newspapers and magazines
Obituary: Marjorie Baker
Photographer whose images of Sussex document the social changes of the 20th century (The Independent) http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/story.jsp?story=583237

Museums 'at risk of robberies'
A covert security review of some of London's top museums has revealed priceless collections are at risk of theft, BBC News has learned (BBC News) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4006957.stm

-- November 17
++ American newspapers
Handle With Care: Moving the Modern
Like a grandmaster in a grueling chess game, Jennifer Russell can calmly plot several moves. She orchestrated the installation of the bug-eyed green Bell-47D1 helicopter over the grand staircase in the newly expanded Museum of Modern Art (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/17/arts/design/17moma.html

Loudoun, Fairfax Draw the Line on Space Museum
Has Loudoun County stolen the National Air and Space Museum's outpost in Northern Virginia? Loudoun's visitors Web site proclaims the county the "Home of America's newest Air and Space Museum," along with the rolling hills, horses, wineries and historic towns that are its better-known draws (Washington Post) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55733-2004Nov16.html

New vibrancy for a grand old collection
The new MoMA punctuates New York with a bountiful place to visit to see what great art used to be (Los Angeles Times) http://www.calendarlive.com/galleriesandmuseums/cl-et-artmoma17nov17,2,7019631.story?coll=cl-art

A space of artistic grace
Yoshio Taniguchi's masterful design for MoMA is a unifying clean sweep through the modern age (Los Angeles Times) http://www.calendarlive.com/galleriesandmuseums/cl-et-archmoma17nov17,2,6840279.story?coll=cl-art

++ British newspapers
Playing to the gallery
A bold use of space and light is at the heart of the redesigned Museum of Modern Art in New York. But how well does the $425m building serve its art? (The Independent) http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=583525

-- November 18
++ American newspapers
Afghan Artifacts, Feared Lost, Are Discovered Safe in Storage Thousands of valuable artifacts from Afghanistan's National Museum, long feared destroyed or stolen, survived two decades of war hidden away in storage, the museum's director and the minister of information and culture said Wednesday (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/18/international/middleeast/18afghan.html

A Revolutionary Who's Now Revered
They were like Shakers: older men, soberly dressed in white shirts and dark pants, standing and making something simple and solid and beautiful. In fact, they were Steve Reich and members of his ensemble, playing the first part of his seminal work "Drumming" at the Metropolitan Museum on Saturday night (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/18/arts/music/18reic.html

The Modern Gone By: Inspiration for a New Way of Art
During the countdown to the reopening of the vastly expanded Museum of Modern Art on Saturday, The New York Times asked some art-world luminaries to reflect on the museum's past and future (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/18/arts/design/18moma.html

What Is the Value of Priceless Art? Debate Continues on $20 Admission When the Museum of Modern Art reopens on Saturday, admission will be free - for a day. On Sunday, the price goes up, to $20. And some art lovers are already protesting (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/18/arts/design/18free.html

Panel ponders legalities of reclaiming art
Nazi-plundered works are the focus of ever more court cases. Lawyers discuss options (Los Angeles Times) http://www.calendarlive.com/galleriesandmuseums/cl-wk-holocaust18nov18,2,6563246.story?coll=cl-art

++ British newspapers and magazines
Young artists portray experience of neglect and abuse
An exhibition portraying the lives and hopes and fears of over 1,000 youths went on display at Tate Modern yesterday (The Guardian) http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,1353548,00.html

Bargain on the cards at mystery art sale
Works go on sale at the Royal College of Art's Secret exhibition for £35 - but the catch is that as a buyer you won't be told whom your work is by until you have handed over the cash (The Guardian) http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,1353534,00.html

Museum heading for dusting down
A £70m plan has been unveiled to take the Royal Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh into the 21st century (BBC News) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4023197.stm

Modern slant for waterfront museum
Construction of Swansea's new National Waterfront Museum is complete and work is starting on the exhibitions inside (BBC News) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_west/4019441.stm

High standards set for museums
A scheme to ensure that high standards are maintained in the UK's museums is being launched on Thursday (BBC News) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/4020567.stm

-- November 19
++ American newspapers
The Art of the Art Deal
There are dozens of paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and scores in the National Gallery in Washington that art-world insiders once called Duveens (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/books/19book.html

In the Shards of the Past, the Present Is Revealed
Mark Dion's tenderly site-specific "Rescue Archaeology," the first Projects exhibition to be held in the expanded Museum of Modern Art, may get lost in the shuffle of the inaugural fanfare. But try not to miss this small show, the 82nd incarnation of a series devoted to new art or design. The work, which the museum commissioned four years ago, is a kind of roots tour that resonates well with this historic occasion. It time-travels through several layers of the Modern's (and Manhattan's) past and renders in modest but poetic terms one of the basic truths of urban life: new structures inevitably erase the old (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/arts/design/19smit.html

Racing to Keep Up With the Newest
Never mind that the almost shockingly big Museum of Modern Art, which opens tomorrow, could hardly have been other than an improvement on the previous expansion, 20 years ago, which was a rats' maze of galleries around an escalator. By and large the redone museum, although more than a trifle like the new corporate headquarters of modernism, is a triumph of formal restraint and practical design - an eloquent reaffirmation, within its galleries, of the enduring beauty of the Modern's historic, albeit tendentious, account of modernism (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/arts/design/19kimm.html

Housewarming Time for Good Old Friends
For a lot of New Yorkers, the reopening of the Museum of Modern Art tomorrow will mean one thing above all: a fond reunion with objects they love in the place they love to see them - the big white rooms of the big, and now bigger, white cube in Midtown Manhattan. They won't be disappointed (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/arts/design/19cott.html

The Who, What, Where and When (the Why You Already Know)
The Museum of Modern Art is beloved, but you may need a period of adjustment to feel at home in its latest incarnation. Here's a user's guide to help make the new feel familiar again (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/arts/design/19chea.html

Next Big Hit at the Modern: Its Reopening
There are perhaps no New Yorkers more aware of the excitement surrounding the Museum of Modern Art's reopening as Philippe Filsaimé and Dario Stanic (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/arts/20museumcnd.html

Exploded' MoMA meets the press
Officials of the expanded Museum of Modern Art exult to an international gathering before the reopening (Los Angeles Times) http://www.calendarlive.com/galleriesandmuseums/cl-et-moma19nov19,2,5334002.story?coll=cl-art

A library for Little Rock
The new Clinton Presidential Center may lack some of the man's charisma, but its cantilevered form is the city's instant landmark (Los Angeles Times) http://www.calendarlive.com/galleriesandmuseums/cl-et-library19nov19,2,6167671.story?coll=cl-art

Berkeley: Magnes Museum charts cultural odyssey of Sephardic Jews "It was a unique time when there was a confluence of social and historic factors," said Elayne Grossbard, Judaica curator at a Berkeley museum that is presenting an exhibition that explores that historical period. "These were people who found it more worthwhile to work together. That's their legacy to us. No matter how fractious people can be, there are wonderful results when they put those divisions aside." (San Francisco Chronicle) http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/11/19/EBGQ09QLKL1.DTL

Masks, sculpture mark 25th anniversary of African museum as part of Smithsonian A new show of 73 African masks and sculptures claims boldly to fulfill the standards of beauty in the west as well as those in Africa. It also marks the 25th anniversary of the National Museum of African Art as part of the Smithsonian Institution (San Francisco Chronicle) http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/11/19/national1336EST0545.DTL

Strip club owner who shot presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald is focus of new exhibit in Texas He might have more instant recognition than the man who killed President Kennedy 41 years ago. "Jack Ruby: Voices from History" debuts as the nation prepares to mark the anniversary Monday of Kennedy's assassination. The temporary exhibit, separate from the permanent exhibit on Kennedy's assassination, is expected to run at least six months, organizers said. It's a patchwork of photos, newspaper pages, artifacts and quotes from witnesses, key players, Ruby's acquaintances and Ruby himself (San Francisco Chronicle) http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/11/19/national0248EST0421.DTL

Treasures once feared lost are safe
Thousands of valuable artifacts from Afghanistan's National Museum, long feared destroyed or stolen, survived the last two decades of war hidden away in storage, according to the museum's director and the minister of information and culture. "They are intact," said the minister, Sayed Makhdum Raheen, on Wednesday (International Herald Tribune) http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/11/18/news/kabul.html

++ British newspapers and magazines
Forgotten Reynolds on display at Foundling Museum
A lost painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds of a chubby baby Moses, once valued more highly than the artist's towering Portrait of Omai, has gone on display at the Foundling Museum in London (The Guardian) http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,1354556,00.html

The rich art of Africa goes on show to dispel 'caricature' of a dark continent (The Independent) http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=584387

Cathedral charters viewed online
The medieval charters of Canterbury Cathedral are going online following a £49,700 Heritage Lottery Fund grant (BBC News) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/4023841.stm

-- November 20
++ American newspapers
For Museum of Modern Art, a Homecoming
Perhaps no New Yorkers are more aware of the excitement surrounding the Museum of Modern Art's reopening than Philippe Filsaimé and Dario Stanic (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/20/nyregion/20museum.html

Opening a New MoMA
Today the doors swing wide on what amounts to a stunning reinvention of the Museum of Modern Art. It has been a good 40 years since the museum recast itself so completely, and it's safe to say that this incarnation will prosper for many generations to come. On a day like today, all the complexities of a major project like this - fund-raising, planning and construction - seem to dissolve, leaving behind an inspiring new building by the Japanese architect Yoshio Taniguchi (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/20/opinion/20sat3.html

Homage From One Collage Artist to Another
Garth Fagan loves to change his choreographic mind many times in a single dance. During the program that his company presented on Thursday night at the Joyce Theater, performers moving smoothly one moment would suddenly snap into sharp, angular positions the next without any apparent logical transitions (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/20/arts/dance/20faga.html

Art auctioned for $4.3 million
An auction of traditional American art Wednesday night at Christie's Los Angeles brought $4.3 million in sales and set records for three artists. Focusing on works made in California and other Western states, the sale was the most successful to date in a continuing series launched in 1998 at the international auction house's West Coast outpost (Los Angeles Times) http://www.calendarlive.com/galleriesandmuseums/cl-et-quick20.1nov20,2,5221302.story?coll=cl-art

Thousands of visitors view New York's reopened Museum of Modern Art Thousands of people waited in a line that wrapped around a city block Saturday to file into the reopened doors of the renovated and expanded Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco Chronicle) http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/11/20/entertainment1523EST0552.DTL

MoMA goes for the grandiose
Never mind that the almost shockingly big Museum of Modern Art, which opens Saturday, could hardly have been other than an improvement on the previous expansion, 20 years ago, which was a rats' maze of galleries around an escalator. By and large the redone museum, although more than a trifle like the new corporate headquarters of modernism, is a triumph of formal restraint and practical design - an eloquent reaffirmation, within its galleries, of the enduring beauty of the Modern's historic, albeit tendentious, account of modernism (International Herald Tribune) http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/11/19/features/moma.html

Painted treasures of the Moghul rulers
Few stories are quite as strange in mankind's cultural history as the birth of an art school that blended the principles of Iranian painting with motifs borrowed from Northern Europe. As a further complication, this improbable marriage took place in India, ruled by the emperors of Turcic-Mongol ancestry, "the Moghuls." (International Herald Tribune) http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/11/19/features/melik20.html

-- November 21
++ American newspapers
Israel's Yad Vashem Museum Lists Victims
Israel's Holocaust museum launched a Web site Sunday giving Internet users access to biographical information on 3 million Jews killed by Nazi Germany and its collaborators -- the most comprehensive database of its kind (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Holocaust.html

At Holocaust Museum, Turning a Number Into a Name
What is known of their lives has always been dwarfed by a single, almost sacred number - six million. But each of the victims of the Holocaust had a name, an address, a place of birth, a place of death (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/21/international/middleeast/21holocaust.html

A Day to Savor Art as the Modern Reopens
Tad Davis, the first aficionado to get in line for the reopening of the Museum of Modern Art, arrived before sunrise. Recalling the time when he and his wife cried with joy before a Matisse, he said that no wait was too long - especially since his 10th wedding anniversary was the day before (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/21/nyregion/21moma.html

Obituary: Joseph Koepfli, 100, Museum Benefactor, Dies
Joseph B. Koepfli, a California Institute of Technology chemistry researcher who helped start the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, died here on Oct. 30, his family said. He was 100. (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/21/arts/21koepfli.html

The Picnic That Never Was
Photographs may correspond to the way things actually look in the world, but optical precision is not the same thing as reality. In the art world, the truth-telling capabilities of photography are tethered less to fact than to ideas about perception, emotion and cultural evolution. If documentary work shows us that life may be stranger than fiction, recent conceptual photography counters that fabrication may be truer than life (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/21/arts/design/21geft.html

Sex Museum Visits Up: Must Be for the Culture
The museum opened in a building at that corner in October 2002, saying its purpose was "to preserve and present the history, evolution and cultural significance of human sexuality." The museum's arrival attracted a splash of news coverage, a denunciation by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and, according to the museum's founder, more than 15,000 visitors in its first six weeks (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/21/nyregion/21folo.html

Long Wait for a MoMA Moment
Thousands line up for the eagerly anticipated reopening of the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan after a three-year renovation (Los Angeles Times) http://www.calendarlive.com/galleriesandmuseums/cl-na-moma21nov21,2,2323923.story?coll=cl-art

Parking costs rise at Getty
The cost of visiting cultural institutions is rising - even at the Getty Center, the hilltop Brentwood complex run by the ultra-rich J. Paul Getty Trust. Admission to the museum, special exhibitions and other programs is free, but the price of parking has jumped from $5 to $7 (Los Angeles Times) http://www.calendarlive.com/galleriesandmuseums/cl-ca-artsnotes21nov21,2,6904704.story?coll=cl-art

A Miró-Calder reunion
A longtime devotee offers an appreciation as the works of two old friends are brought together for a show (Los Angeles Times) http://www.calendarlive.com/galleriesandmuseums/cl-ca-caldermiro21nov21,2,4482074.htmlstory?coll=cl-art

+++ British newspapers and magazines
Cost may sink Berlin's Museum Island restoration scheme
A proposal by the British architect David Chipperfield to regenerate Berlin's Museum Island, the city's historical heart boasting five museums in the former communist east, could be derailed because of the project's cost (The Guardian) http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,,1356677,00.html

Architect chosen for city museum
The architect who will design the new Museum of Bristol has been announced (BBC News) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/4028897.stm

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