Top ART News: Week In Review | Nov. 8 - Nov. 15

■ Visiting the Louvre - There's an App for That! | PARIS (11/08/09) — Not only is there an App for just about everything, there's just about everything in the Louvre museum Carrousel shopping center. Thus, on Saturday, Apple opened its first retail store in France (the 277th in ten countries), underneath the Tuileries garden and great glass pyramid in the Louvre... More >

■ Oxford's Ashmolean Museum Reopens After 10 Months and $100 Million | OXFORD, ENGLAND (11/08/09) — After 10-months and an almost $100 million renovation, Oxford's Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology reopened to the public on Saturday. The world's first university museum, the Ashmolean has added 39 new galleries, including four temporary exhibition galleries, a new education center and state-of-the art conservation studios... More >

■ MoMA Designs a Bauhaus Retrospective | NEW YORK, NY (11/09/09) — From architecture, industrial design, textiles and furniture, to graphics, painting and sculpture, the 20th century art movement known as the Bauhaus continues to influence our modern world (all one has to do browse the latest IKEA catalog for examples). In its first major exhibition dedicated to the Bauhaus since 1938, the Museum of Modern Art is celebrating the extraordinary artists, architects and designers of the avant-garde school... More >

■ Extreme Makeover: King Tut's Tomb Edition | CAIRO (11/10/09) — Disturbing brown spots are forming on the walls in the famous tomb of Egypt's most popular pharaoh, King Tutankhamen (better known as King Tut). The Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) and the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) are embarking on a new preservation project aimed at assessing the damage. On Tuesday, the two entities announced a new 5-year partnership in which they will work together to analyze and conserve the ancient burial site... More >

■ Bidding War Over '200 One Dollar Bills' Ends at $43.76 Million | NEW YORK, NY (11/11/09) — The art market may still be suffering, but a successful contemporary art auction on Wednesday night indicates a rebound is  on the horizon. A surprise bidding war between five potential buyers broke out when Sotheby's brought Andy Warhol's 200 One Dollar Bills (1962) up to the auction block... More >

■ Ciao MAXXI! Contemporary Art Museum Opens in Italy | ROME, ITALY (11/13/09) — The vision most of us see when we think of a museum in Italy is a Renaissance or Baroque-style palace or cathedral, a Medici-commissioned structure, with classical columns, frescoes on the ceiling and gilding as far as the eye can see. The National Museum of the XXI Century Arts (or MAXXI for short) opening Saturday in Rome hopes to change that perception... More >

■ Munch Art Heist Was Well-Planned, Oslo Police Say | OSLO, NORWAY(11/13/09)  — Perhaps it's the miserable, tortuous scenes in the artwork of Edvard Munch that makes it attractive to the criminal element. The Symbolist painter's most famous agony-laden image, The Scream, was stolen on the same day as the opening ceremony of the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympics. In 2004, another version of The Scream and the Madonna were both taken from Oslo's Munch Museum. And on Thursday, a man smashed the window of the Nyborg Kunst art gallery in Oslo and snatched Edvard Munch's Historien... More >

■ Mona Lisa's Eyebrows Were Tweezed and 24 Other Startling Revelations | MANCHESTER, ENGLAND (11/14/09) — What's behind Mona Lisa's mysterious gaze? Art historians and scholars have been trying to answer that question for centuries. No one will ever know for sure, but scientists have discovered answers to other questions about Leonardo da Vinci's famous gal. Da Vinci - The Genius, a new exhibit at the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI), presents a comprehensive exploration behind the genius of the Italian Renaissance master... More >

■ Manolo Blahniks Under $70? Only at the RCA Secret Sale! | LONDON (11/14/09) — Pssst... the Royal College of Art has a secret. It's selling artwork by some of the world's most renowned artists for just under $70. And if you register in time, you can get in on this exclusive sale. Now in it's 16th year, RCA Secret is an annual contemporary art exhibition and sale which offers original postcard-sized artworks, made and donated by professional artists, designers, illustrators and postgraduate art students... More >

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Top ART News: Week In Review | Nov. 8 - Nov. 15

Contemporary Art Rendez-Vous at the FIAC in Paris

PARIS -- Art aficionados have gathered in "The City of Light" this week for the 36th annual FIAC ("Foire internationale d'art contemporain"), the most prestigious contemporary art fair in France. Following on the heels of London's Frieze Art Fair last week, Paris' FIAC is hoping to capitalize on the momentum of this year's reported upswing in art sales achieved at the Frieze. Despite 28 dealers and more than 40 galleries from last year not returning, FIAC 2009 will present over 200 exhibitors representing thousands of artists.

At FIAC's VIP preview on Wednesday night, Femme Ecrivant, a $24 million painting by Pablo Picasso of his mistress, Marie-Therese Walter, was put on reserve. Fine art by other modern masters such as Francis Bacon, Piet Mondrian and Fernand Leger, will also be up for bid. More than 65,000 visitors are expected to stroll the picturesque locations around the Tuileries Gardens, Grand Palais and the Louvre Museum, where the FIAC will display some of the world's finest modern masterworks.

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FIAC (Oct. 22 - 25, 2009) | Website
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[Read more - $24 Million Picasso Reserved as Arnault Joins Browsers at FIAC | Bloomberg]

Contemporary Art Rendez-Vous at the FIAC in Paris

Defining a Masterpiece at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts

MINNEAPOLIS, MN — Superb art objects from Paris' famed Louvre Museum are now on view at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA). The Louvre and the Masterpiece explores how the definition of a “masterpiece,” as well as taste and connoisseurship, have changed over time. “We are thrilled to present such a magnificent group of works from the Louvre’s collections to Minnesota for the first time,” noted Kaywin Feldman, the MIA's Director and President.

The Louvre and the Masterpiece features sixty-two works of art drawn from all eight of the Louvre’s collection areas, spanning 4,000 years. Paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, and drawings are divided into three major themes: the changing historical and cultural definitions of a masterpiece; authenticity and connoisseurship; and the evolution of taste and scholarship.

"We have an idea that one is good, one's better and one's the best," said Feldman of the exhibit's theme. "We encourage visitors to examine and decide."

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The Louvre and the Masterpiece (Oct. 18, 2009 - Jan. 10, 2010)
Minneapolis Institute of Arts | Website

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Defining a Masterpiece at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Egypt and the Louvre End Their Rift Over Relics

The argument over artifacts between France and Egypt may finally be over. The countries have been in a standoff as the Louvre Museum debated whether to return antiques that Egypt says were stolen - or else, the country threatened,  Egypt would cut all ties with the French museum indefinitely.

PARIS /Bloomberg/ -- France said it is returning to Egypt five fresco fragments acquired by the Louvre Museum, saying there were “serious doubts” about their provenance, and responding to Egyptian demands for their return. The 35-member commission overseeing France’s national museum collections unanimously agreed that the fresco fragments from the wall of a prince’s tomb must be given back. Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand has decided to return them.

The mural fragments, from the tomb of a prince of the XVIIIth dynasty, “were acquired in good faith by the Louvre in 2000 and 2003,” the ministry said. “In November 2008, following the rediscovery by archaeologists of the tomb from which the frescoes seemed to originate, serious doubts emerged as to the legality of their exit from Egyptian territory.”

Earlier this week, Egypt suspended co-operation with the Louvre, saying the Paris museum was not returning the mural paintings removed from Luxor in the 1980s. The Supreme Council of Antiquities said the Louvre was refusing to honor an agreement to give back all stolen and smuggled Egyptian antiquities to the Arab country.

Zahi Hawass, the head of the antiquities council, has been on a campaign since 2002 to recover Egyptian antiquities located abroad, including the bust of Queen Nefertiti in Berlin’s Neues Museum, which opens next week, and the Rosetta stone at the British Museum in London.

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[Read More - France to Give Back to Egypt Five Artifacts Bought by Louvre | Bloomberg]

Egypt and the Louvre End Their Rift Over Relics

The Louvre Will Offer Mona Lisa...and McDonald's? Sacre Bleu!

A McDonald's at the prestigious Louvre Museum? Oh Mon Dieu! The impending construction is leaving a bad taste in the mouths of refined Parisian palates. But since fast food restaurants are practically all over the place, it was likely only a matter of time before Mona Lisa met Ronald McDonald.

PARIS /NPR/ -- French culture and American convenience will come together in Paris soon: McDonald's plans to open a restaurant in the forecourt of the Louvre art museum in December. But the idea is meeting with sharp criticism from the French art community.

With its vaulted ceilings and polished, granite walls, the upscale shopping mall beneath the museum — known as Le Carrousel du Louvre — has the same I.M. Pei architecture as the museum. The mall almost feels like an extension of the Louvre itself, and that's partially why the idea of a McDonald's there is ruffling feathers.

Officials from the Louvre are assuring critics that a quality McCafe will be positioned in the underground approach to its entrance. The restaurant will represent the American segment of a new food court featuring world cuisines and coffee shops.

France is McDonald's biggest market after the United States, but many in France see the fast-food chain as the Trojan horse of globalization and the scourge of the traditional French meal.

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[Read More - Big Macs to Join Mona Lisa at the Louvre | NPR]

The Louvre Will Offer Mona Lisa...and McDonald's? Sacre Bleu!