Vancouver

Vancouver Art Gallery lawn won't be coming back until at least 2012

The north lawn of the Vancouver Art Gallery was once a green oasis amidst a jungle of skyscrapers. People stuck in traffic on Georgia Street would look to the lawn with envy as families and groups of all ages lay on the grass and took in the sun. That was before the five-ring circus came to town. Now, four months after the 2010 Winter Olympics left town, where there once was grass, there is bark mulch.  Georgia Straight, July 14, 2010

Toronto

Toronto architecture firm wins Prix de Rome

Lola Sheppard and Mason White, founders of Toronto's Lateral Office, plan to use the money to do research on communities in Nunavut, Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Alaska and Greenland.  CBC, July 14, 2010

Los Angeles
Eli Broad Says He'll Pay $7.7M, Not $1, For LA Museum Site

In addition to his new offer on "a 99-year lease on public land in downtown Los Angeles where he can build an art museum," the billionaire "already has promised to pay the full construction cost of up to $100 million and provide a $200-million endowment that would yield an estimated $12 million a year to cover the museum's operating expenses." Los Angeles Times, July 14, 2010

London

Munch Madonna print sells for $1.95M

A hand-coloured image of Edvard Munch's Madonna has been sold for £1.25 million ($1.95 million), setting a record for a print.  CBC, July 14, 2010

British artists protest BP arts sponsorship

U.K. activists continue to protest BP's arts sponsorships, with the British Museum the latest venue targeted.

Veiled protesters poured an oil-like substance around one of the famed London venue's prominent antiquities, allowing the dark, sticky liquid to run down the plinth holding the statue Hoa Hakananai'a.  CBC, July 13, 2010

'The Bookcase You'll Want To Live In'

Designed and constructed by Rintala Eggertsson Architects it's called The Ark and is part of the V&A museum's 1:1 Architects Build Small Spaces exhibition. Dagur Eggertsson himself, on the video playing, likens it to "a gigantic Ikea bookcase" – but, my dears, it is so much more.  The Guardian (UK) July 13, 2010

Baghdad

Iraq's Modern Art Collection Languishes "Hundreds of works are packed away in a hot, dusty storeroom, tended to by a doting but frustrated staff. Many of the paintings there are damaged. All are withering from dangerous conditions and haphazard storage, from the heat and Iraq's official indifference to an important if lesser-known part of its artistic heritage." The New York Times, July 14, 2010

Art Birthday – Gustav Klimt, July 14, 1862

Cheryl Siegel | Librarian | Vancouver Art Gallery | 750 Hornby St. | Vancouver, BC | V6Z 2H7 | 604-662-4709  | fax 604-682-1086 | www.vanartgallery.bc.ca