In a public address Nicholas Penny, the new director of the National Gallery, said that the museum will no longer show blockbuster exhibitions and will focus on its duty to display art with which the public is unfamiliar rather than yet another parade of a famous artist’s greatest hits.

“The responsibility of a major gallery is to show people something they haven’t seen before,” he said. “A major national institution should be one that proves a constant attraction to the public. What is important is encouraging historical and visual curiosity in the general public.”

Read full article (The Times, February 27, 2008)

The n8 has a new viral feature that can crawl the Web: Now in Amsterdam. It is a little agenda built in flash with an overview of exhibitions in the Amsterdam museums. The embed function is still in beta, and will be published for the first time on this blog.Let me know if it works and what you think.

Update:
It seems to be working fine in Firefox 2, however IE7 is not showing it. Has anyone got the same problem?

Second update:
Bug has been fixed, courtesy of David (Grrr Amsterdam)

Scene from the trailer for ‘Script’ at the Centraal Museum in the Dutch city of Utrecht, which mixes history, fashion and interiors within a continuous filmic experience.    

Presenting masterpieces from the history of fashion and interiors within a continuous filmic experience, the permanent display ‘Script’ at the Centraal Museum in the Dutch city of Utrecht, mixes historical dresses and contemporary fashion by designers such as Jean Paul Gaultier and Vivienne Westwood with cabinets and sofas as well as modern furniture by Gerrit Rietveld. Costume dramas from the last twenty years are the inspiration for film-sets displays, resulting in a new interpretation of the museum’s unique period rooms.

In the films that are the starting point for ‘Script’, furniture and fashion represent important historical and cultural developments. Within ‘Script’ highlights from the museum’s Rietveld collection are placed within an extraordinary modernistic environment. ‘Script’ is designed by designers Concern and Darlaine Heitinga and not only situates highlights from the collection within film sets, it also invites the visitor to step inside various sets and be photographed. Visitors can assume a role in such cinematic classics as the silent movie ‘Man with a Movie Camera’, the costume drama ‘Sense and Sensibility’ and the science-fiction film ‘Blade Runner’.

 Scene from the the science-fiction film ‘Blade Runner’, which was used as one of the sources of inspiration for ‘Script’

Watch the trailer
Visit the Centraal Museum website

A rare post about ourselves, nevertheless one with a wink: the Dutch Bloggies Awards have longlisted museumlab.org in the category best News Blog. This is a surprising support at the end of our first year of existence online (this site started in April 2007).

A warm welcome to our new visitors.

Presentation by architect Renzo Piano in honor of the opening of the Broad Contemporary Art Museum at LACMA. Plus a walk through the galleries showing the Eli and Edythe Broad collection.

Friday night fun at the Guggenheim’s Art After Dark party. (Photos: Aarona Pichinson and Virginie Blanchere)

In New York and Los Angeles, museums after dark are often busier than during daylight hours. In both cities, just about all of the major museums, and a few of its minor ones, have jumped on the nocturnal bandwagon, hoping to hook a younger generation on museumgoing. But they’ve hooked the older crowd as well, with some offering live music or D.J.’s, performances and lectures, discount prices and, not surprisingly, booze.

A majority of these evening activities are on Friday nights, seemingly perfect for just-arrived out-of-town weekenders. The crowds they attract appear much more local than tourist. The average attendee comes with high heels and a hip handbag, not sensible shoes and a Lonely Planet guide.

Whitney Live offers live performances at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

Here are some examples from New York:
Target First Saturdays @ Brooklyn Museum of Art
Art After Dark @ Guggenheim Museum
K2 Lounge @ Rubin Museum of Art
Whitney Live @ Whitney Museum of American Art
Get Weird @ New Museum of Contemporary Art

And from Los Angeles:
NIGHT VISION @ Museum of Contemporary Art LA
College Night @ Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Friday Nights @ The J. Paul Getty Museum

Read more (The New York Times, February 7, 2008)

The Broad Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM) and is opening February 16, 2008 as the centerpiece of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s (LACMA) transformation, an ambitious program of expansion and renovation. Designed by Renzo Piano, the three-story BCAM includes 60,000 square feet of exhibition space, designed specifically for the display of contemporary art.

Much has been said about the history and aesthetic value of the the Piano extension and about the much debated announcement by its billionaire financier that, contrary to earlier promisses, he won’t be donating his extensive collection to the museum (see below). But now the Los Angeles Times is providing an in depth analysis of the building’s program and Piano’s changes to the sprawling museum campus. An interactive graphic offers the opportunity to literally look inside the building, and even illustrates how the rooftop sunshades help filtering natural light as the sun moves over the museum.

Interactive graphic of the new Broad Contemporary Art Museum by Renzo Piano (Source: Los Angeles Times)

Go to website Broad Contemporary Art Museum/LACMA

Read what others had to say about the new museum:
Los Angeles Times (February 7, 2008)
SunHerald (February 6, 2008)
The Art Newspaper (January 31, 2008)
Bloomberg (January 30, 2008)
New York Times (January 8, 2008)

Update Juha van ‘t Zelfde (February 10, 2008)
Read a review of the opening in the Los Angeles Time (February 10, 2008)
To have and give not, New York Times (February 10, 2008)

A digital museum was launched on the occasion of the 90th birthday of the so-called Grand Old Lady of Dutch literature, Hella S. Haasse.

A digital museum, dealing with the life and work of Dutch novellist Hella S. Haasse, has been launched by Dutch graphic designer Sara Kolster and multimedia company Stormy Minutes Society. They claim that the website is the first of its kind in the world. Hella Serafia Haasse (born 2 February 1918 in Batavia) is one of the most important modern Dutch writers. She is often called the Grand Old Lady of Dutch literature.

In the digital museum you can travel through a landscape of digital content, ranging from old (family) photos and manuscripts to interviews, sound recordings and other personal material, from her early years as a child right up to the present day. An interactive timeline enables visitors to compare the events that shaped Haasse’s personal live with her professional carreer and her literary output.

Unfortunately, the website only provides text and sounds in Dutch, but some of Haasse’s books have been translated and an English biography is available on the website of the The Foundation for the Production and Translation of Dutch Literature.

Visit website Hella Haasse Museum

Interesting article in The Independent on the similarities and differences between two major museums that both received a glass covered courtyard by British architect Sir Norman Foster. Courtyards have become something of a Foster speciality. In the 90’s he designed the Great Court at the British Museum, and in the last few years he and his team created the Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard – named for it sponsors - at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C., which opened last November.

Foster was eager to rekindle the history of the Smithsonian as a social-events building providing a large public living room for people in Washington. This kind of space, whether it’s totally enclosed, partially enclosed, or completely open, is something that Foster has developed as a theme in buildings over many years.

The renovated Kogod Courtyard at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery in Washington by Foster + Partners.

 
Great Court at the British Museum (London, UK, 1994-2000) by Foster + Partners.

Other examples of Foster-designed “urban living rooms” include the Sainsbury Centre at the University of East Anglia, where visitors can view works of art in a relaxed setting, and the Sage music centre in Gateshead, where the main level is accessible all year round whether a concert is taking place or not. The Kogod Courtyard even features free wireless internet access.

However, Foster’s spectacular glass additions for existing spaces do not always receive a positive response. Referring to the Great Court at the British Museum, fellow-architect Rem Koolhaas has accused Foster of turning an icon of the Enlightenment into a kitschy homage to the Mall of America, as was reported in The New Yorker.

Visit website Foster + Partners
Read article (The New York Times, November 19, 2007)

Since this week, the Whitney Museum of American Art branch at Altria, located on Park Avenue at 42nd Street in New York, has ended its operations. Comprising a 5,200-square-foot sculpture court and a 1,000-square-foot gallery, the branch consisted of a large gallery space and a sculpture court and ran nearly the full block. In 25 years, the Altria branch has presented 110 exhibitions and hundreds of performances and events in midtown Manhattan.

The Whitney Museum of American Art branch at Altria closed this week.

The idea for the Whitney at Altria originated in the mid-1970s, when Altria embarked on the development of a new corporate headquarters by the architect Ulrich Franzen. At the time, the city was in the midst of a severe fiscal crisis and many major corporations were leaving New York. A city incentive allowed for the allocation of extra floors in new buildings that included an interior public space.

Altria was the first to use this incentive to create a cultural facility.The branch opened in April 1983, after construction was completed of the Altria (formerly known as Philip Morris Companies) headquarters building at 120 Park Avenue. It was an unprecedented project, marking the first time a corporation included a museum as an integral part of its offices and fully funded the activities within this space. Altria is now undergoing a corporate restructuring and, as a result, moving its headquarters out of Manhattan.

Accoring to the the New York Times the Whitney is not looking for a new location to take the place of the Altria branch. “It has been fabulous, but the branch museums are a thing of the past,” the museum’s director Mr. Weinberg told the newspaper. “They’ve pretty much run their course.”

Guggenheim Las Vegas opened in 2000 and was closed down in 2003.

Several incidents at the Guggenheim Museum have made it painfully clear that a museum’s dreams of empire one day have to face reality. Hardest hit have been the museum’s off-site ventures, which in a more boastful period were the stuff of the Guggenheim’s far-flung ambitions. First to close was the SoHo branch, which shut its doors in 2001, despite all the neighborhood’s visibility and the attention-getting shows of important artists as Gary Hill and Bill Viola. And for lack of funding the Guggenheim Las Vegas, a soaring exhibition hall at the the Venetian Resort-Hotel-Casino, was abruptly closed down only 15 months after its spectecular opening.

At the same time, however, the European branches of the museum in Bilbao, Venice and Berlin are performing very well and other museums are planning to open satellite venues, including Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Centre Pompidou in Metz and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

Download press release (Whitney Museum of American Art, January 23, 2008)