Vancouver

background / vancouver  Michael de Courcy has just recently published a web version of his 1974 work, background / vancouver.  The work is a portrait of the city captured on an autumn day in 1972 by  Michael de Courcy, Taki Bluesinger, Gerry Gilbert and Glenn Lewis.  In this digital version of the work, navigating the grid 360 photographic views and the index of corresponding titles gives the viewer an intimate glimpse of Vancouver as a late 20th century 'creative milieux'. 

Elections BC sides with IntegrityBC on prohibited donation to BC Liberals  Integrity BC has called on the BC Liberal party to stop behaving as though BC charities are a private piggybank to help beef up party coffers, this after Elections BC told the party to return a 2011 donation from the Vancouver Art Gallery Association.  The Nelson Daily, June 5, 2012

Chicago

Chicago’s Art Institute debuts major retrospective of Roy Lichtenstein’s work  Nearly 15 years after his death, fans of pop artist Roy Lichtenstein can take in a comprehensive exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago that spans his famous cartoons from the 1960s to more muted Asian-inspired works from the 1990s.  Calgary Herald, June 5, 2012   

Peterborough, New Hampshire

ArtsBeat: Nan Goldin Given Lifetime Achievement Award  The MacDowell Colony, the prestigious artists’ retreat in New Hampshire, has awarded the photographer Nan Goldin its Edwin MacDowell Medal for lifetime achievement in the arts.  New York Times, June 5, 2012

New York

ArtsBeat: MoMA Names New Chief Curator of Photography  The Museum of Modern Art has appointed Quentin Bajac, chief curator of photography at the Pompidou Center in Paris, to be its next chief curator of photography, it announced today. He succeeds Peter Galassi, who retired from that job in 2011 after 30-years at MoMA.  New York Times, June 5, 2012

Architectural Canopy Shines in Battery Park City A look at a geometrically complex arcade canopy by Preston Scott Cohen, an effective use of public space in Lower Manhattan that connects the Goldman Sachs headquarters to a shopping arcade and hotel. New York Times, June 5, 2012

London

Art That Speaks To You: A Wind Organ Sculpture In London's Canary Wharf Luke Jerram's Aeolus "mutters breathy tunes while looking like somebody jammed a pipe organ and porcupine together in a transmogrifier, which then malfunctioned." The Atlantic, May 30, 2012

Vienna

From Masterpiece to Kitsch

Ten shows are celebrating the work of Gustav Klimt, almost every single bit of it.  Beyond the golden sheen of the famous painting “The Kiss,” this city’s museums are now celebrating a different kind of Gustav Klimt.   New York Times, June 5, 2012

St. Petersburg

Degas bronzes controversy leads to scholars’ boycott  Fears of legal action if authenticity questioned at Hermitage seminar.  The Art Newspaper, May 31, 2012

Johannesburg

Johannesburg Set To Build Africa's Tallest Skyscraper "The structure, part of a development known as Centurion Symbio-City, will soar to 447 metres, or 110 storeys, more than double the Carlton Centre - and higher than the Empire State Building. It would become the 14th-tallest freestanding structure on the planet." The Guardian (UK) May 31, 2012

Beijing

Fulford: Ai Weiwei has it  Everything about Ai Weiwei sets him apart. Artists often criticize dictatorships, but Ai is the first visual artist in history who functions as his nation’s most broad-ranging and effective critic of government. When he’s not campaigning for human rights he’s exposing what he calls “tofu buildings,” structures made by corrupt contractors that collapse and kill their inhabitants.  National Post, June 5, 2012