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Time magazine’s armored truck from the Balkans, pockmarked with bullet holes, has been hoisted into place. The laptop used by Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter murdered in Pakistan in 2002, has arrived. So has the vest that Bob Woodruff of ABC was wearing last year when he was wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq.

These stark reminders of the hazards of newsgathering will be displayed at the new Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue, scheduled to open on Oct. 15. Cranes still hover over its steel-and-glass structure, but workers have now installed the facade’s showstopper — a 50-ton, 74-foot-high marble engraved with the First Amendment — and are preparing the exhibitions.

Slowly, the Newseum — a bigger, more dramatic, higher-tech reinvention of of the former Newseum in Arlington, Va. — is taking shape. More than six years in the making and costing $435 million, it may be one of the world’s most expensive museums now under construction. It is certainly among the most prominent, perched on the last buildable site on the presidential inaugural parade route between the Capitol and the White House.

Read full article (New York Times, May 8, 2007)

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Students from Brown University have started a new experiment in Second Life: OSMOSA. This Open Source Museum of Open Source Art seems to be the ultimate mashup, and might also be the start of utter chaos.

The boundaries of SL notwithstanding, there seem to be no limitations to this project. Anyone can add, edit or delete parts of the art and architecture.

It is an interesting social experiment, and hopefully also an artistic and institutional one.

From their blog:

“The Open Source Museum of Open Source Art. “Open source” means that the museum is entirely in the public domain. Anyone can add, modify, or remove art from OSMOSA. Likewise, anyone can add, modify, or remove elements of the OSMOSA building. Our goal is to reimagine definitions of art, artist, curator, museum, culture, and open source. This project is underway in a virtual reality called Second Life (located at Eson 30, 235, 63).”

And right away an interesting (albeit small) discussion followed in the commentary box.

Visit the OSMOSA website

Het Duitse Emigratiecentrum in Bremerhaven heeft zaterdag de Europese prijs voor het Museum van het Jaar gewonnen.

Volgens het Europese Museum Forum, die de verkiezing organiseerde, is het museum vooral zo bijzonder omdat „de theatertechniek en de effectieve multimedia installaties de bezoeker van de haven naar het schip en uiteindelijk naar de kust transporten, zodat ze dezelfde onzekerheid ervaren als de emigranten voelden bij hun aankomst in het Beloofde Land.”

Het Europese Museum Forum reikt sinds negen jaar de Europese prijs voor het Museum van het Jaar uit.

Lees volledige artikel (NRC Handelsblad, 7 mei, 2007)
Website Emigratiecentrum

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Just visited the Hamburger Kunsthalle to see the maginificent work of Germain painter Daniel Richter, but was struck by an imposing structure in front of the museum that appeared familiar to me. The International Herald Tribune offers an explanation:

“The towering black cube at the center of the Great Mosque in Mecca, known as the Kaaba, now has a politically charged twin standing in front of Hamburg’s premier museum. This fabric-clad cube made its way here in an odyssey that began in Venice, detoured through Berlin and overcame, en route, fears of offending Europe’s Muslims.

The idea for the installation came from the German artist Gregor Schneider, who “had been commissioned to build his cube of aluminum scaffolding draped in black muslin for the 2005 Venice Biennale. But his plan to install it in St. Mark’s Square was rejected by city officials, who suggested it might offend or provoke Muslims. He was then invited to construct it at a contemporary art museum in Berlin, only to have the work there halted by a city museum official.”

With a muslim population comprising no less than 12 percent of Hamburg’s total population of 1.8 milion the people at the Kunsthalle must have been well prepared for a massive outrage from fundamentalists. But on this sunny spring day everything seemed perfectly under control as the droves of art believers far outnumbered the representatives of other religions. But tomorrow we are heading for Denmark, and I’m anxious to learn how they reacted to Schneider’s mimicking act more than a year after the famous cartoon controversy. The black box probably would fit nicely in the garden of the Louisiana Museum of Modern, looking out over the Danish waters towards the east.

P.s. the Daniel Richter retrospective is definitely worth visiting, but after Hamburg it will travel to Gemeentemuseum Den Haag (September 29 till January 6, 2008) and to Malaga CAC (April 11 till July 14, 2008), so you might better wait till it comes your way.

Read full article (International Herald Tribune, April 16 2007)
Go to website Hamburger Kunsthalle

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After watching the the previous edition over and over again, Tate has finally refreshed the TateShots website. This monthly video programme with a focus on modern and contemporary art at Tate, can be downloaded from the museum’s website. The latest edition features an epic firework battle, a new commission by the Yangjiang Group entitled ‘If I knew the danger ahead, I’d have stayed well clear’ (2007). This performance was staged in Liverpool’s docks and marked the opening of Tate Liverpool’s exhibition of contemporary Chinese art that runs till June 10. The work was composed of 20.000 rockets being launched from two opposing barges, filling the sky like exotic tracer fire. Besides footage of this performance TateShots alse features an item on the current exhibition: Contemporary Art from China.

Go to website TateShots

An exhibition of more than 30 simple, efficient gadgets for poor countries opened Friday at the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, turning the museum’s garden on Yew York’s Fifth Avenue into a global village. “Design for the Other 90 Percent,” which closes Sept. 23, underlines designs for the needs of the 5 billion people across the globe who have little or no access to the products of wealthy countries.

Read full article
Go to website Cooper Hewitt

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One of the worlds leading museum designers Friday provided the most detailed vision yet for the proposed Canadian Museum for Human Rights, revealing innovative interior plans that will engage visitors through extensive use of interactive and multimedia technologies.

The museum in Winnipeg would be a towering, multi-levelled structure featuring several galleries connected by a ramping system that will take visitors from floor to floor.

Galleries will range from themes on aboriginal rights and the human rights journey in Canada to a forum that will feature interactive programs to reveal how personal actions impact human rights. Another level will look at todays challenges, featuring a real-time map of human rights issues such as poverty and discrimination against women. One display will employ a gesture-responsive wall full of factual information that will work in a fashion similar to Nintendo Wii technology; with a simple swipe of the hand in the air, visitors will be able to turn virtual pages. Upon entering the museum, visitors will be given a human rights key that will provide a digital recollection of their experiences that they can later take home.

Renowned designer Ralph Appelbaum, whose work for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and the American Museum of Natural History in_New York has won every major design award, noted the tech-savviness will make the museum particularly approachable for the younger generation.

Read full article (canada.com, May 5, 2007)
Powerpoint presentation

During the month of May, London’s museums and galleries will host Lates, the first ever city-wide season of late night openings, with special exhibits, film screenings, music, poetry, club nights and a chance to see some of London’s great masterpieces after dark. Highlights include a recreation of a Surrealist Ball at the V&A, an all night screening of Andy Warhol’s Sleep at Tate Modern, a Tokyo late night lounge at the ICA, a Fashionista Friday at the National Portrait Gallery and the opening of galleries all over the East End organised by the Whitechapel.

Lates is presented by Barbican Art Gallery, British Museum, The Hayward, Institute of Contemporary Art, Museum of London, Museum in Docklands, National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Tate Britain, Tate Modern, V&A and Whitechapel, in partnership with the Mayor of London, demonstrating the vitality of London’s museums and galleries in the landscape of London’s cultural life. Lates coincides with the national Museums and Galleries Month season in May, and Night of the Museum on Saturday 19 May, featuring late-night events at hundreds of venues around the country.

Read full article (Art Daily, May 3, 2007)

SAN FRANCISCO, May 2 — The geeks are in open revolt.

A throng of tech-savvy Internet users have banded together over the last two days to publish and widely distribute a secret code used by the movie industry to prevent illegal copying of high-definition movies.

The broader distribution of the code may not pose a serious threat to the movie industry, because only sophisticated technologists can use it to tailor the decryption software capable of getting around the copy protection on Blu-ray and HD DVD discs. But its relentless spread has already become a lesson in mob power on the Internet and the futility of censorship in the digital world.

Read full article (New York Times, May 2, 2007)

More articles:
Wikipedia
Financial Times (May 2, 2007)
CNET (May 2, 2007)
Oh Nine, Eff Nine

Note: this is too important to not mention it here, since the the fate of DRM has effect on museums.

Update:

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Live by the community, die by the community. (Wired, May 3, 2007)

Something I read in my online wandering. Yet another sign (albeit not a recent one) of people not taking the museum’s exclusivity anymore.

Read the full article