Ottawa

Increase funding to Canada Council, NDP says  The NDP wants to see more funding and a better strategy to support the arts, warning that without such a commitment, a multi-billion dollar industry will be at risk.  A news conference in Ottawa Tuesday morning, the party called for increased funding for the Canada Council for the Arts as part of a strategy to support the industry.  CBC, May 17, 2011

Toronto

Diana's dresses on view ahead of Toronto auction  A collection of dresses worn by Diana, Princess of Wales, goes on public display in Toronto Monday ahead of an auction next month.  The Design Exchange is showing the group of 14 dresses, including the midnight-blue silk velvet dress with she wore while dancing with actor John Travolta during a 1985 White House state dinner.  CBC, May 17, 2011

Los Angeles

Is The Getty An Impediment To A Great Getty Museum? "The Getty Museum has improved immensely over the years, but nobody would say it has improved as much as it might have. The primary obstacle is that the director has full responsibility for the museum, but the president has final authority over it. And the president also has other obligations." Los Angeles Times, May 17, 2011 

Washington, D.C.

Wayne Clough Asks Smithsonian Employees To Take Buyouts, Retirement The Smithsonian, he wrote, "will be able to reshape the workforce to meet current and future programming needs as we continue to move forward in implementing the Strategic Plan. This will also help us address critical Federal budgetary issues." Washington Post, May 17, 2011 

The Gateses as ‘Living Sitters’ A painting at the National Portrait Gallery of Bill and Melinda Gates is one of the first to be commissioned and completed of someone not a president who is still alive.   New York Times, May 17, 2011

Paris

‘Manet, the Man Who Invented Modernity,’ Paris Exhibition - Review  Europe’s latest art blockbuster has opened in Paris to some — but not all — giddy reviews and predictable mobs.  New York Times, May 17, 2011

Beijing

Ai Weiwei Permitted Visit From Wife (He's In Good Condition)   "Detained artist Ai Weiwei seems to be in good physical health but mentally conflicted and tense, his wife has said after seeing him for the first time in six weeks." The Guardian (UK) May 16, 2011

Australia

Pigment at Hanging Rock: Thinking About Ancient Australian Aboriginal Art "The Kimberley region of Australia is vast, remote, barely inhabited and strewn with ancient art. Jo Lennan takes a tour with a local elder to work out what it tells us about our distant past." Intelligent Life Spring 2011

International

Behind The Illicit Artifacts Trade "The Getty and other American museums over the last decades have justified the acquisition of these things under questionable circumstances by saying that these poor orphan objects have been separated from their archaeological context already, and that we have a duty to rescue them from the market and to preserve them and display them publicly." NPR, May 17, 2011

Cheryl Siegel, Librarian/Archivist

Vancouver Art Gallery

750 Hornby Street Vancouver BC, V6Z 2H7

604-662-4709