— Christo Postpones "Over the River" Indefinitely: In light of the string of lawsuits and resilient local opposition that has kept Christo and Jeanne-Claude's enormous "Over the River" project from moving forward, the artist duo's surviving member announced this week that the project is on hold, but did not specify a new completion date. "I am fully committed to ‘Over The River’ just as Jeanne-Claude and I have always envisioned it,” Christo said, “and I look forward to having these legal hurdles behind us so we can realize this temporary work of art in Colorado’s Arkansas River Valley." [Denver Post]
— Poland's Lost Raphael Found in a Vault: "Portrait of a Young Man" (ca. 1513-14), a painting by Raphael that was feared destroyed when it disappeared in 1945 after being seized in 1939 by the Nazis from the Crakow collection of the Czartoryski family, has been found in a bank vault in an undisclosed location. "Most importantly, the work was not lost in the turmoil of the war," a spokesman for the Office for the Restitution of Cultural Goods of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "It has not been burnt or destroyed. It exists. It is safely waiting in a region of the world where the law favours us." [TAN]
— Iran's World-Class Modern Art Collection Revealed: The former queen of Iran, Farah Pahlavi, who fled the country in 1979 during the Islamic revolution, assembled a museum-caliber collection of modern and contemporary art — including works by Richard Hamilton, Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist, Jim Dine, Jackson Pollock, and Marcel Duchamp — that has been hidden in the basement of Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art for more than three decades. Now, many of them are finally making their Iranian debuts in a new exhibition at the museum. "It is a national asset and I hope they preserve it well," Pahlavi said. "It's the most valuable collection of western modern art outside Europe and the US." [Guardian]
— Will DIA Be Saved From "Death Spiral"?: The Detroit Institute of Arts's director Graham Beal says that if the institution's mileage tax proposal doesn't pass on Tuesday the museum will go into "a death spiral" and he will have to lay off 70 staffers immediately, close every weekday except Friday, shutter several galleries, cease all education programs. But according to a new poll suggests that won't be necessary, as 69 percent of surveyed residents of Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties said they would vote in favor of the tax. [WSJ, Detroit Free Press]
— Art Basel Miami Beach Gets 70-Foot Gator: With the help of engineer Waddy Thompson and local historian Cesar Becerra, Miami-based artist Kenneth Rowe plans to float a 70-feet-long, 30-feet-wide sculpture of an alligator through Biscayune Bay during December's Art Basel Miami Beach art fair. The giant reptilian float, dubbed "Gator in the Bay," will even have a moving mechanical jaw, all the better to scare partying Basel-goers. [HuffPo]
— SFMOMA Honors New Media Artist Jim Campbell: On October 23 the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art will bestow a lifetime achievement award on local artist Jim Campbell — whose large light installation "Exploded Views," similar to his 2010 sculpture in Manhattan's Madison Square Park, currently hangs above the museum's lobby — during the annual Bay Area Treasure Award ceremony. The gala event, where Campbell will speak with the museum's media arts curator Rudolf Frieling and fellow media artist Scott Snibbe, will benefit SFMOMA's exhibition and education programs. [ArtDaily]
— Milan's Picasso Show a Pre-Sale Blockbuster: An exhibition of 250 works from Paris's Musée National Picasso at Milan's Palazzo Reale doesn't open until September 20, and already the traveling show's only European stop is setting attendance records, with 88,000 tickets already sold for the Italian city's presentation of "Pablo Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso in Paris." "We certainly expected a lot of attention — Picasso is Picasso," said Natalina Costa, director of 24 Ore Cultura, the group co-organizing the show, "but we were still surprised by the pre-sales." [TAN]
— Malian Archaeological Treasures Threatened: Mali's Djenne-Djenno, one of the richest archaeological dig sites in Sub-Saharan Africa, is a leading source of the type of artifacts that have become the focus of recent repatriation disputes as African countries demand the return of looted objects from western institutions — most recently Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. Adding to the site's woes are the region's increasing instability, particularly in light of the risks posed by Islamist vandals who have destroyed shrines in the Malian capital Timbuktu. [NYT]
— London Gets Gold Medal in Survey of Global Arts Capitals: Yesterday the results of the World Cities Culture Report 2012 were published, comparing the cultural offerings in 12 major metropolises, and revealing that the British capital and Olympic Games host city has more museums than any other. It also leads the way in restaurants, parks, and night clubs. London mayor Boris Johnson, who commissioned the presumably impartial report, will meet with representatives of the other cities — Berlin, Istanbul, Johannesburg, Mumbai, New York, Paris, Sao Paulo, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, and Tokyo — to discuss the results. [Guardian]
— RIP Mary Louise Rasmuson, Alaskan Philanthropist, at 101: Mary Louise Rasmuson, major philanthropist who between her family foundation and her personal donations to the Anchorage Museum and the Alaska Native Heritage Center, gave more than $200 million to Alaskan nonprofits — and whose contributions to Washington, D.C.'s Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian resulted in its auditorium being named the Elmer and Mary Louise Rasmuson Theater — died at her home in Anchorage on Monday according to a Rasmuson Foundation spokesperson. "I have yet to find someone more gracious or someone who cared for Alaska — especially Native Alaskans — as much as Mary Louise did," said representative Don Young, R-Alaska. "Alaska lost a giant." [AP]
VIDEO OF THE DAY
Jim Campbell explains his "Exploded Views" commission for SFMOMA:
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