+Art Exhibits Help Make Time Fly Between Flights
NYTimes - USA
Too busy with business meetings to visit the local art museums while on the road? Not to worry. There is an ever-increasing likelihood you can make up for your cultural negligence at the airport.
+Cézanne's vision turns ugly
TheGuardian - UK
Under a sky full of sleet above a dull, brown stretch of the Seine, an effort of imagination is needed to link the hillside above this village west of Paris with some of the most colourful works of the impressionist painter Paul Cézanne.
+Why did the Roman athlete underperform?
ArtNewspaper - UK
The New York antiquities sales held on 9 December at Sotheby’s and 11 December at Christie’s, where new records were set for ancient jewellery, showed that the US market is as strong as ever.

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+Once is not enough
SydneyMorningHerald - Australia
Just as Tracey Moffatt keeps returning to her images, her shows demand more than one visit.
I am sitting opposite a very chipper Tracey Moffatt in the outdoor cafe of Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art, where her huge film and photo exhibition spans three floors. She is often written about as being Australia's most successful international artist. How did it all start?

+Taking an art break
TheGuardian - Canada
PMillie King works at a hectic Charlottetown office.
But once a week, she disappears at lunchtime.
During an hour-long reprieve, she picks up a pencil and a sketch pad or a brush and some watercolours and immerses herself in a project during a unique art class.
+A hit and miss year for art scene
jsonline.com - USA
The good, the bad and the very, very ugly - put them all together, and you have the visual arts scene in Milwaukee and across the state during 2003.
+Museum closes but masterpieces remain on display
TheGuardian - UK
One of Britain's favourite art galleries has just locked its doors, and will stay shut for the next five years. The museum, home of many of the nation's best loved paintings, including works by Vermeer, Rembrandt and Frans Hals, is visited by over 250,000 people from the UK every year, more than many leading regional galleries - but is located across the North Sea: the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

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+Cooking up art
nola.com - USA
Neither the word "bikini" nor "barbecue" springs to mind, but here I am at a place called the Lucky 13 Art Studio out on Bayou St. John, about to witness a vivid underground spectacle called "Sweet Meat," in which local performance/conceptual artist Heather Weathers will weave a bikini out of freshly butchered red meat, model it and then grill and serve it to her audience.

+British Museum buys Iraq “most wanted” cards
ArtNewspaper - UK
LONDON. The British Museum has acquired a set of the playing cards showing Saddam Hussein, his entire cabinet, chiefs of staff and an assortment of other Iraqis on the US “most wanted list”. The cards were issued to US troops in Iraq to help them identify the enemy.
+Stolen Scottish art recovered by the FBI
theScotsman - Scotland
CA SCOTTISH masterpiece that was stolen this summer from a country house in the Borders has been discovered in the United States by FBI agents.
The Young Goatherds by the renowned Scottish colourist Edward Atkinson Hornel, valued at £30,000, was recovered from the Freeman’s auction house in Philadelphia before it could be sold.
+Vatican art: Putting church in perspective
TheEnquirer - USA
One of the most difficult years in the Cincinnati Archdiocese's history will end on a shimmering note, as a display of master works of art, architecture, sculpture, mosaics and artifacts from the Vatican, reflecting 2,000 years of faith in the Catholic Church, was unveiled Saturday at the Cincinnati Museum Center.

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+Gauguin - Tahiti - l’atelier des tropiques in Paris
ArtDaily.com
PARIS, FRANCE.- The Galeries nationales du Grand Palais presents “Gauguin - Tahiti - l’atelier des tropiques,” on view through January 19, 2004. Organised by the Réunion des Musées Nationaux, the Musée d’Orsay and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The exhibition will be presented in Boston from 29 February to 20 June 2004. Sponsored in Paris by LVMH/Moët Hennessy.Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior.

.World's Oldest Art Uncovered in Germany
Deutsche welle - Germany
Archeologists working on a dig in the southern German province of Swabia have unearthed what they claim to be the oldest statue in the history of art.
The three little figurines carved from mammoth bone were discovered in a cave in Southern Germany, and are so intricate in their design that archeologists believe they could change our understanding of the imaginative power of early man's mind. The artifacts date back between 30,000 and 33,000 years, to a time when some of modern humans' earliest relatives populated the European continent.
.Conceptual artist loses tax case
CBC - Canada
CALGARY - An artist who has never sold a piece can't deduct his time and materials as business expenses, the Federal Court of Appeal ruled Thursday.
.Alleged Van Gogh thief netted in Spain
The Guardian - UK
Detectives were last night hoping to recover two stolen Van Gogh paintings following the capture of an international art thief known as The Monkey.

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.Pop goes modern art in exhibit of Warhol prints
Chicago sun times- USA
Images by the artist known as the the Prince of Pop are showcased in "The Prints of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again)," a new exhibit at the Bachman Gallery at the Center for Visual and Performing Arts in Munster.

.Radical art prize shortlists guardedly
TheGaurdian - UK
It's enough to make the avant garde choke on its muesli: for the first time in its history, the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London is to acquire security guards.
.MoMA on art splurge to add renovation lustre
TorontoStar - Canada
NEW YORK—As it races to finish its $858 million expansion and renovation, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has also been acquiring close to $40 million (all figures U.S.) worth of paintings, drawings and sculpture, hoping to reopen in a year's time with an even richer permanent collection than before.
.Are Damien Hirst’s paintings falling apart?
TheArtNewspaper - UK
A 1997 spot painting by Damien Hirst, “Caesium Carbide 89” sold for $366,400 at Sotheby’s in New York last month. But just how long will the painting last? It is painted with acrylic on canvas, so it will probably age better than a similar spot painting seen recently at the Venice Biennale.

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.Visual art: Top 10 plus a few more
TheNewZealandHerald - New Zealand
"Pick 10," the arts editor said. "Don't write your usual generalisations. Write about the 10 most memorable shows."

40-year legacy haunts The Barnes multi-billion dollar art collection
AFP - yahoo!
The fate of one of the world's finest but least-viewed art collections could be decided in a Philadelphia courtroom this week, as lawyers clash over the eccentric legacy of a cantankerous eyewash tycoon.
Antiquities spark a global tug of war
MSNBC - USA
ROME- From Egyptian mummies to Greek statues, remnants of ancient civilizations are eagerly eyed by dealers looking to pocket profits and by curators hoping to add prestige to museum collections. The flourishing illegal market in antiquities is being battled with tougher laws, international accords and legal action, like a case in a Rome courtroom Thursday against a curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
Art - an undervalued communications tool
FAZ.net - Germany
Art does not reproduce the visible but makes visible,“ said the Swiss-German painter and graphic artist Paul Klee. Today, numerous companies attempt to do just that: to gain visibility through the deployment of art. Art is now seen as a communications instrument through which the image and philosophy of a company can be imparted.

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Korean Art, Serenely Unconcerned, Finally Gets a Chance to Shine
NewYorkTimes - USA
Apart from jade-green celadons, which everyone adores, there was no such thing as Korean art for most Americans before 1979. That was the year the exhibition "5,000 Years of Korean Art, " organized by the Asian Art Museum here, traveled the country and was a hit.

Forgotten art in attic makes $1m
BBC - UK
A painting by 19th Century US artist Martin Johnson Heade, which was stashed in an attic for 60 years, has fetched more than $1m (£602,000) at auction.
The man who made Phaidon cool
TheArtNewspaper-UK
LONDON. When the British entrepreneur Richard Schlagman bought Phaidon Press 13 years ago, it was a high-quality, but staid publishing house. Today, it is one of the most hip and trendy, with a strong emphasis on contemporary art and photography and a list that stretches to movies and industrial design. Under Schlagman, Phaidon’s staff has expanded from around 40 people to more than 130 in four cities.
Art lecturer recalls Turner Prize winner
EADT - UK
A FORMER art lecturer who helped launch ceramicist and Turner Prize winning artist Grayson Perry's career has said spoken of his delight at his ex-pupil's success.

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A primal art-space fills in the blanks
SMH -Australia
Cluck if you will, but it's no longer just about art. Gone are the days when a museum lived or died by its collection alone; now, the gods demand packaging. So while the National Gallery of Victoria's international collection may be, as the director, Gerard Vaughan, chants in sackcloth monotone, the best of its kind in the southern hemisphere - after all, it's not such a big claim, for a $2 billion bag boasting Rembrandts and Warhols in the plural - that's not really the point.

Bringing art to the people
Asashi.com.com - Japan
The black-turtlenecked dilettante, his pockets stuffed with cash and a key to a yellow Ferrari, would be welcome at one of Tomio Koyama's galleries in Tokyo. But so would John Smith and Hanako Suzuki, a couple of teenagers with only a little to spend but a big desire to understand and possess art.
Art enriches life, and some collectors
MiamiHerald -USA
Art, the standard financial advice holds, can enrich your life, but it probably won't do the same for your pocketbook.
It doesn't pay dividends. It doesn't earn interest. It has no inherent value, and its price can drop faster than airfares in an Orbitz sale.
''Art is a terrible investment,'' said Miami hotel magnate Don Rubell, whose private collection happens to be one of the largest in the country, and who, incidentally, was smiling as he said it.
Closed minds, closed collections
TheGuardian - UK
Some museums and galleries are "closed collections", in the sense that they have what they have, and there are no plans or provisions for adding to them. The Wallace Collection in London is one of these. Presumably Sir John Soane's museum is another. Both collections are of a size (more or less) to suit their building, and of extraordinary interest as embodiments of the taste of their founders.

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Pampered art lovers dine and take a nap
MiamiHerald -USA
Amid the extensive art on display at Art Basel Miami Beach, visitors dine, get a massage, sip tea or nap in a private sleep room.

Such a figure is Mickey Mouse. Even though The Walt Disney Co. recently went to court to extend the copyright on the world's most famous rodent, Disney can't stop its mouse from mutating into the art of others.

Aboriginal art dating back 11,000 years found in Tasmania
ChannelNewsAsia.com
HOBART, Australia, : Aboriginal rock art believed to date back some 11,000 years has been discovered in Australia's island state of Tasmania 160 years after the death of its last full-blood Aborigine, local indigenous leaders said.
Fine-art auction sets record for three Canadian painters
TheGlobe&Mail -Canada
Records were set last night for three Canadian painters at the final big auction of the 2003 fall fine-art season.A large oil by Quebec artist Marc-Aurele de Foy Suzor-Cote was the high point of the Joyner Waddington's sale in Toronto.
FBI, city police seek to sort out art theft
Philly.com - USA
A day after the theft of what police estimated as $1 million worth of art from a modest Germantown home was discovered, investigators were still trying to determine what had been stolen - and what each piece was worth.

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Sexuality & art, an MFA's vision
YaleDailyNews -USA
Through an unexpected coalescence of art-world trends and the demise of Manhattan strip joints, the Whitney Museum of American Art has become the place for men and women to get their rocks off. The retrospective of American painter John Currin, MFA '86, running through Feb. 22, charts the development of a body of work since the late '80s that consistently spotlights the female form.

Bad boy artist keeps experts guessing
TheAge - Australia
Gerard Vaughan, National Gallery of Victoria director, is pictured in Sydney yesterday with his counterpart Edmund Capon of the Art Gallery of NSW in front of two identical paintings Boy Bitten by a Lizard said to be by glamorous, bad boy Italian artist Caravaggio (1571-1610).
Hirst, not the first
This is London -UK
One is by Britain's best-known modern artist, who has amassed a huge fortune by selling his notorious works for up to £1.5 million. The other has been churned out for years by an unknown who, every Sunday, sells his paintings for less than £100 each from a pavement pitch on the Bayswater Road.
Selecting art for the airport: It's about image
IndyStar - USA
City and airport officials will entertain concepts from artists today in an invitation-only meeting about what could adorn the planned $310 million midfield terminal.

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What Remains by Omer Ali Kazma in Istanbul
ArtDaily - Internet
BEYOGLU, ISTANBUL.- The Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center presents "What Remains, A Video Installation by Omer Ali Kazma" on view through January 10, 2004. A video installation by Turkish artist Omer Ali Kazma, which explores the life of Galatasaray football club’s soccer players and their coach Fatih Terim.

Art Smugglers' Best Customers in Iraq are Americans
Turk.US
Izzet Huseyin , a smuggler for 17 years in Baghdad and Ismail, a smuggler for 15 years, explained that the most common buyers of Iraqi artwork or historical artefacts are Turkish, Saudi Arabian, Kuwaiti and American soldiers on their way home.
Sale reports: British paintings, London
TheArtNewspaper - UK
The British paintings sales on 26 and 27 November got off to a bad start with the dramatic last-minute withdrawal of Christie’s cover lot, Reynold’s portrait of Mrs Baldwin, after rumours circulated that there was a much higher degree of studio participation than was indicated in the catalogue.
This is hotel art like you've never seen before
MiamiHerald - USA
Her toenails are roughly the size of Key limes, cut to dribble over the glass rim of a rum and Coke. As a strapping, queenly Botero bronze nude newly at home in a chic Miami hotel lobby, she oversees a domain even more striking and over-sized than her pedicure.

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Liquid artwork that neighbours see as no asset
TheGuardian - UK
A meeting has been arranged to consider designs for a major piece of public art, commissioned for a riverside site.