Museum Minutes

• Roberta Smith reviews the BCAM's inaugural show, noting the "embarrassing" fact that 21 of the 30 artists currently on display are New Yorkers "at a point when Los Angeles has one of the liveliest art scenes on the planet." She also narrates a slide show. Looking at the architecture, the Times finds the museum's Renzo Piano-designed building lacking in LA pizazz. Coagula's Mat Gleason notes that the museum's version of contemporary art ends in the 1980s. Charlie Finch wonders, "How many spineless curatorial suck-ups have hitched ride after ride on Eli Broad's private jet for all-expenses-paid trips to the pleasure spots of the world?" David Byrne and girlfriend Cindy Sherman were at the museum's opening; Byrne blogs "...Lionel Ritchie, Nicole’s 'father,' takes the stage and sings about being easy like Sunday morning. I head to the restrooms..." C-MONSTER has photos.

• The MAN blog, which sounded the alarm bells about the Spiral Jetty, asks if the Trans-Texas Corridor, a massive highway project, threatens Marfa, Texas, the Chianti Foundation museum and all things Judd.

• The big news this week was a $163 million art theft in Zurich. Snatched from the E. G. Bührle Collection were works by Monet, Cézanne, Degas and Van Gogh. The robbery may be linked to a heist -- also in Switzerland -- of two Picassos a week earlier. Of all the stolen masterpieces, maybe the most valuable is the Cézanne painting, "Boy in the Red Waistcoat." The now-defunct Figure Painting blog found that there are three other versions of the painting, safely ensconced in the collections of the Barnes Foundation, MoMA and the National Gallery. The NYTimes looks a famous art heists, including worst-ever, from the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum in 1990. The Independent tells us that art theft is big business: "After drugs and weapons, it is the third most lucrative international criminal operation..."

• Indie-rock-elders Sonic Youth, fresh off playing a Marc Jacobs runway show, are putting together a traveling exhibit of works by artists they know, some of whom --like Raymond Pettibone, Gerhard Richter and Richard Prince -- have been featured in the band's album art. NY Mag's Vulture blog reports that the band's hoping the Whitney will host the exhibit in New York. This might work as the museum's no stranger to indie rock. After all, Dan Deacon recently did a show there.

• CultureGrrl reports that a judge has blocked a proposed sale by Fisk Museum of its Stieglitz Collection to Alice Walton for $30 million. The Nashville-based Fisk University was hoping the Wal-Mart dollars would prop up its sagging fortunes. But a judge ruled that Georgia O'Keeffe gave the collection of 101 painting and photos, stipulating that they not be sold off. The collection may now go to the O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe.

• C-MONSTER asks of the Met's first-ever piece of African contemporary art, a tapestry by Ghanaian-born El Anatsui, why is it not being shown with the rest of the museum's contemporary art? "Can someone please tell me why we can’t seem to move beyond this geographic provincialism?" Time Magazine's Richard Lacayo gives some more background on the artist.

• The Met is one of a number of museums with looted artifacts of the four thousand year-old Ban Chiang culture of Thailand.
  

• The Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne, Germany, has discovered that one of its Monets is a forgery.

• The Gaston County museum in Dallas is hosting an art trading card event. "The history of Art Trading Cards dates back to the 16th century when they were mainly portraits, used as 'wallet photos.'"

• The 260,000 objects in the British Museum are now available for your online perusal.