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Berliners’ fascination with its bunkers and hidden wartime structures appears to know no bounds. The most famous, the underground complex from which a crazed Hitler tried to direct the end of the war, has just been “reconstructed” down to the last door handle and window frame in a computer-animated graphic.

Historians have praised the virtual tour of the fortress, which is based on state security records of the 1970s, as the truest existing impression of the bunker. The real bunker, close to Potsdamer Platz, was filled in, buried and built over.

Read article in Der Spiegel (June 19, 2007)
Read article in The Guardian (June 19, 2007)

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More and more category specific community sites bubble to the surface since the arts have embraced Web 2.0. There is Your Gallery from Saatchi, with the student spin-off Stuart. Both are designed for new artists to exhibit their work.

ExhibitFiles, “a community site for exhibit designers and developers,” launched in April. Built for museum professionals, it now has 225 members.

Re!ease01 is for both the art professional and the artist. The site’s design and architecture are a bit messy. Although it was launched in the summer of 2006, it still has the appearance of the perpetual beta. Then again, whoever said MySpace looked attractive?

The Museums and the Web conference also had an interactive platform, where participants could blog and discuss about the lectures and workshops. This was quite a nice tool to use, whilst listening to the speakers. This is seen more and more, not just on these conferences but also in universities: a real time online discussion that is fed back into the room.

The last one in this category is artCloud. This is a not yet active network of self-proclaimed “veterans of the art world”, in collaboration with The Art Newspaper. It promises to launch in days.

What is next? A social network for restorators? Archaeologists? Art dealers? Share your examples please.

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Phil Mooney’s office was a virtual museum when he started 30 years ago as archivist for the Coca-Cola Co. So many people tramped through to look at the vintage bottles, trays and calendars that he had it all removed so he could get some work done.

“I said that if a museum was important, my office wasn’t the place for it,” he remembers. “We needed a real museum.”

He got his wish. Twice.

Read full article (AJC.com, May 21, 2007)
World of Coca-Cola website

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The National Gallery in London is encouraging people to hang around the streets of Soho and a corner of Covent Garden once infamous for its filth and debauchery. But it is not suggesting they indulge in anything mucky; it merely wants them to admire some art.

Full-scale framed reproductions of 30 masterpieces from the National Gallery - among them works by Caravaggio, Rubens and Constable - are going up on the outside walls of buildings including a bookmaker’s and a pub. The gallery hopes the spectacular reproductions will lure visitors to the real thing in Trafalgar Square.

The so-called Grand Tour has been made possible as a result of the collaboration between the National Gallery and HP. Rather than the public seeking out its art - art is seeking out its public, interrupting their everyday lives and reminding them of the treasures just around the corner.

Go to website The Grand Tour
Go to press release (National Gallery, June 2007)
Go to photo tour (The Guardian, June 13, 2007)
Click here to visit The Grand Tour photo pool on Flickr

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In wednesday’s special edition of The Art Newspaper, which is daily produced during the international art fair Art Basel that is currently taking place, one of their correspondents reports on a roundtable discussion concerning the Future of the Museum in Europe. The article quotes Hans Ulrich Obrist, director of the Serpentine Gallery in London, saying that for some collectors “to go to a museum is not so interesting anymore because they can’t buy anything”.

Responding to this rather alarming remark, Tate director Nicholas Serota related an experience he had at a dinner during the Venice Biennale last week, where he heard one collector asking another for his assessment of the art fair. The second replied that he had not had the opportunity to see the Cornice Art Fair yet, to which the first responded: “No, I meant the Giardini and the Arsenale”, apparently not knowing that both venues are hosting non-commercial exhibitions during the Biennale.

Go to program Art Basel Conversations
Read The Art Newspaper - Fair Editions

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In 1977, a year after Chairman Mao’s death, there were only 300-odd museums (in China). Most of them were little more than displays of Communist Party propaganda. Within a decade, say official press reports, the number had grown to nearly 830. By the turn of the century there were more than 2,000 of them. By 2015, officials estimate, there will be around 3,000.

Read full article (The Economist, June 14, 2007)

At the Creators Series, a “multidisciplinary salon-style conference” held in New York last weekend, which will travel to Los Angeles this weekend, an audience member asked a panel of artists whether the interactive filmmaking techniques they were discussing had any commercial potential.

In terms of individual artists’ work, the answer may vary. But as for the overall field of new media art, the sponsor of the conference, Tomorrow Unlimited, is betting it’s a resounding yes. Tomorrow Unlimited was launched earlier this year by Tribeca Enterprises, an umbrella company that also includes the Tribeca Film Festival and Tribeca Cinemas. Tomorrow Unlimited aims to foster “emerging creativity,” particularly in the areas of new technology and multimedia. The clothing manufacturer Diesel is already a sponsor of the Creators Series, and Tribeca Enterprises expects that other companies wanting to attract a young, empowered consumer will soon be eager to attach themselves to Tomorrow Unlimited’s maverick image and network of emerging talent.

Read full article (The New York Sun, June 13, 2007)

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Hockney’s claim is that the young generation’s involvement with auditory stimulae - as represented by the iPod - results in a decline in their understanding and appreciation of visual art. “We are not in a very visual age,” he said. “I think it’s all about sound. People plug in their ears and don’t look much, whereas for me my eyes are the biggest pleasure. You notice that on buses. People don’t look out of the window, they are plugged in and listening to something.”

Read full article (The Guardian, June 13, 2007)

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The Finnish National Gallery, consisting of the Ateneum Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma and the Sinebrychoff Art Museum, has put its collections online. Not only can you search for specific artists and their works, you can also decide to print your favourite ones.

Visit The Art Collections
Visit the Finnish National Gallery
Kalervo Palsa on Wikipedia

The following excerpt was taken from an article by Elizabeth Casale, which was first publshed last february on the website of AEA Consulting and deals with the fascinating issue of museums becoming commercial galleries and vice versa:

Over the past couple of years museums have been subject to growing criticism of their increasingly commercial stance. A related trend, the contours of which are only now becoming apparent, concerns the shift in the behavior of commercial galleries and auction houses, which are becoming decidedly more “museum-like”.

Read full article (Platform, AEA Consulting, February 2007)