I am sitting in a colloquium on Open Knowledge and Social Research Networks at Stanford Humanities Center. On the agenda – more of the issues that I summarized the other day in another colloquium at Stanford. [Link] how does open knowledge work with digital technology in academic institutions? how does collaboration at a distance work?…
cultural politics
More on Dennis Oppenheim and the Stanford art collection
Thanks to Colin Renfrew for his reaction to the decision to cancel the acquisition of Dennis Oppenheim’s “Device to root out evil”. [Link] [Link] [Link] (Colin, Lord Renfrew, chaired the committee that designed the art component of the UK National Curriculum (it was a wonderful revolution in arts teaching) and has long been a champion…
Design – a question of form following function? Or much more?
Trouble at the Design Museum in London. This is how The Telegraph describes it The Design Museum in London has been thrown into crisis by the sudden resignation of its chairman, James Dyson, in protest at what he sees as the museum’s misguided pursuit of empty style over substance. In a terse letter to his…
Art and the values of the University
A comment yesterday on Stanford’s decision to abandon the installation of the Oppenheim sculpture “Device to root out evil”. [Link] Why, might I ask, did you invite the Scotty (ed – Stanford’s Dean of Religious Life) into the process? What possible influence should he have on whether a work of art is or is not…
Cleveland Art Museum – another case of dodgy dealing in the art market?
Another major museum may well be supporting the illicit trade in dodgy (stolen, looted, even fake) works of art. (See my comment in February on the Metropolitan in New York and some major collections of Graeco-Roman art – [Link]) CLEVELAND (AP) – Some archeologists say the Cleveland Museum of Art may encourage smuggling and the…
“The massacre of Mesopotamian archaeology”
More reports of the damage done to cultural heritage in the Middle East in The Daily Star (Lebanon) NASIRIYA, Iraq: In the southern Iraq desert, the standing structures of ancient archaeological cities dot the horizon – majestic monuments to times long gone.? Untouched for thousands of years, historic temples, palaces, tombs and entire dead cities…