with depeche mode in it (or something like them, but they looked like middle aged burned out rockers). and then I went to the coffee cart and depeche mode was on the radio.

Hey all, sorry I haven't posted the art news much lately. I have been busy with some very good changes in my life. I recently changed jobs. I am no longer working at the San Diego Museum of Art. I started working at UC San Diego in their fundraising department as a research analyst. Wooohooo! what a great move. Amongst many departments I will also be supporting the Department of Arts and Humanities @ UCSD. Also I have been in my final quarter/month of school before I get my master's degree, Master of Science in Library and Information Science. After that is finished I think I will actually have a life again!
I also have to mention how amazing and supportive Heather has been to me through all of these changes. She cares so deeply about my happiness and success. She has proven over and over again to me what love and friendship mean in a relationship.

Back to the news about the art...Because of all of the change I haven't had much chance to focus on it. It may be a bit sporadic over the next couple of weeks, but I am not dropping it. Soooo just in case you all were wondering.

I look forward to seeing many of you at Tribal Fest, or anywhere else, when I finally get my head out of school.

Bengal master's work showcased after 25 yrs
He laid the foundation for a new visual culture in the post-colonial era and today, the work of this Bengal master commands a hefty price at auctions. But for 25 years, the works of Nandalal Bose stayed out of sight in the vaults of the capital's National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA). Now, 100 works by this artist from the Bengal School are on display in the US.

Not only is this Bose's first showing in the US, it is the first time the paintings have gone beyond Asia. After Bose's family placed its collection of around 7,000 works with the NGMA in 1982, there has been only one exhibition of Nandalal's work which travelled to four cities in India as well as Beijing, Osaka, Tokyo and Djakarta in 1983. Their classification as 'national art treasures' which could not be taken
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Indi...6.cms

Arts institutions feeling impact of ailing economy
By Karen Matthews
ASSOCIATED PRESS
10:37 a.m. April 21, 2008
NEW YORK – When the J. Paul Getty Trust in Los Angeles was seeking to finance the purchase of art works, it did what cultural institutions often do to raise money: It issued bonds.
But rising interest rates brought on by turmoil in the financial markets boosted payments, and the organization got socked for an additional $650,000 in fees earlier this year that it hadn't budgeted for.
www.signonsandiego.com/news/f...ms.html

Re-emerging in a Different Light
By BENJAMIN GENOCCHIO
Huntington
BUILT in 1920 to house the private collection of the industrialist and philanthropist August Heckscher, the Heckscher Museum of Art has grown from an initial gift of 175 works to more than 2,000. They include valuable paintings by Lucas Cranach the Elder, Eugène Boudin, William Merritt Chase, Frederic Edwin Church and Thomas Eakins.
But for years much of the collection was stored in a cramped, flood-prone basement without adequate climate control and was rarely on display. Piecemeal renovations cluttered the elegant galleries, impinging on the museum’s precious 4,000-square-foot exhibition space.
This weekend the museum was scheduled to unveil a nine-month, $1.5 million restoration overseen by Centerbrook Architects of Connecticut, the money coming from the state and federal governments, Suffolk County, the Town of Huntington and private donations.
www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20...artsli.html

Beijing sculptor Zhan Wang steels the scene
He uses the metal to comment on the Chinese dimension of the California Gold Rush. His exhibition is at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco.
SAN FRANCISCO -- A double-edged joke runs through Zhan Wang's exhibition at the Asian Art Museum here. It's about turning rocks into gold.

One of many Chinese contemporary artists who have found global fame and fortune in the post-Mao boom, the Beijing sculptor has struck it rich by making stainless-steel facsimiles of the oddly weathered stones known as scholars' rocks. Unlike traditional scholars' rocks, found in several provinces of China and displayed indoors as objects of contemplation or strategically placed in gardens, Zhan's signature artworks are shiny, hollow forms that bring hundreds of thousands of dollars at auction and grace the collections of such prestigious institutions as Los Angeles' Museum of Contemporary Art.
www.latimes.com/entertainm...67103.story

Landscapes are the draw at National Gallery
The Washington, D.C., facility goes from Barbizon School to Impressionism in 'In the Forest of Fontainebleau: Painters and Photographers from Corot to Monet.'
WASHINGTON — FOR much of the 19th century, scores of French painters, laden with knapsacks and portable easels, trekked through the Forest of Fontainebleau to capture the shifting wonders of nature with their brushes right on the spot. Some came for weekends; some stayed for a lifetime.

Pioneers of the new art called photography, laden with even more equipment, made the pilgrimage as well. So did the young Impressionists. Together they all raised the art of landscape to new heights in France.

A generous sampling of this work is on display in an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art that celebrates a place rather than a painter. Called "In the Forest of Fontainebleau: Painters and Photographers From Corot to Monet," the show closes June 8 and goes on to the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston in July.
www.latimes.com/entertainm...31013.story

Indigenous art sales stymied by heritage laws, say auction houses
LEADING art auction houses say that changes to Victorian heritage laws affecting the sale of indigenous art are forcing them to conduct sales in Sydney, robbing Melbourne, where they traditionally occur, of national and international interest.
Sotheby's announced this week it would hold its stand-alone indigenous art auction, which has been held in Melbourne for more than a decade and is expected to fetch more than $8 million, in Sydney on October 20.
www.theage.com.au/news/nati...78639.html

Sotheby's N. Y. Sale of 19th Century European Art Achieves $26.3 Million
NEW YORK, NY.- Today at Sotheby’s, the sale of 19th Century European Art including The Orientalist Sale achieved a total of $26,377,050 (est. $23.7/32.9 million). Today’s sale was the first time in almost a decade that Sotheby’s held a dedicated offering of Orientalist Art, highlighted by exceptional masterpieces representing the entire region including North Africa, the Middle East and Turkey, and Sotheby’s was the only auction house to offer such a sale in New York this Spring. The Orientalist Sale, comprising lots 122-212, realized $9,025,750 (est. $7.4/10.3 million), the highest total ever for a dedicated offering of Orientalist Art in New York, and set auction records for several artists including Arthur von Ferraris, Walter Gould, Rudolf Ernst, Clemente Pujol de Gustavino and Federico Bartolini.
www.artdaily.com/index.asp

A grand park plan? Not really
Both visions for downtown's civic plaza are less than inspiring and raise questions about how the design will be handled
When Mark Rios takes the microphone Tuesday evening at a public hearing inside Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, he'll be presenting two very different designs for the new civic park downtown. The first is what his Los Angeles firm, Rios Clementi Hale Studios, calls a "base" plan, for which the projected $56-million cost is already in hand -- paid by Related Cos. as part of its deal to develop a commercial project with Frank Gehry across Grand Avenue from Walt Disney Concert Hall. The second is an "enhanced" version showing what might be possible with an infusion of new funding.

It's beyond rare to see a project packaged this way for public consumption. It's one thing to present a design as a series of phases, to be built one after the other. But this approach is essentially a preemptive strike against possible complaint. We realize, the designers and the developer are implicitly pleading, that what we've come up with isn't particularly exciting. But budget-wise, our hands are tied. And just look at what we could do if they weren't!
www.calendarlive.com/galleri...07.story

Evicting the Arts
Capitol Hill’s scene didn’t have to be hit so hard, so fast.
How do you keep an arts scene from collapsing? Only five years ago Capitol Hill was Seattle's most vital performing-arts neighborhood, with around a dozen small venues filled year-round with theater, dance, and comedy. But the recent development frenzy is doing a good job of wiping much of that out.
The latest evidence was the sale of the Oddfellows Hall on Broadway and Pine, which housed four performance spaces (Seattle Chamber Theater, Velocity Dance Studio, and the two operated by Freehold Theater Lab), as well as rehearsal rooms and office spaces for numerous small arts groups. The new owner is Ted Schroth of GTS Development, who doubled his residents' rents and in one fell swoop wiped out nearly half of the Hill's arts venues. Only the Century Ballroom is slated to remain in the building.
www.seattleweekly.com/2008-04...arts.php

French Art for the French
Despite France's jealously protective stance toward the nation's artistic reputation, contemporary French art has been streaming out of the country and into the hands of foreign buyers at an alarming rate in recent years. The government of President Nicolas Sarkozy was already on the case — even before nude photos of First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy were auctioned in London last week to a Chinese investor for $91,000. France's Culture Ministry has announced measures aimed at reversing the general lack of interest among the French in buying art — a deficiency some fear is slowly bleeding an enormous vein of national culture dry.
www.time.com/time/world/...1267,00.html

3-D Images -- Cordless And Any Time
ScienceDaily (Apr. 21, 2008) — Securing evidence at the scene of a crime, measuring faces for medical applications, taking samples during production – three-dimensional images are in demand everywhere. A handy cordless device now en-ables such images to be prepared rapidly anywhere.
www.sciencedaily.com/release...4413.htm