Berlin’s Pergamon Museum Revamp 40 Years Overdue, Ukrainian Art Scholar Released from Russian Prison, the Fall’s Best Art Books, and More: Morning Links for August 23, 2024

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THE HEADLINES

GER-TARDY SCHRÔDER. The Germans, usually so reluctant to be late, are apparently 40 years behind schedule in building Berlin’s Pergamon Museum. The Economist calls it “yet another German construction debacle.” In 1999, Germany’s then chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, showed up at a ceremony to mark the renovation of Berlin’s Old National Gallery, one of five significant cultural institutions that make up the Museumsinsel (Museum Island) in Berlin, including the Pergamon Museum. “We’ll manage this,” Schröder told the crowd. “But they didn’t,” The Economist writes. “The reconstruction has failed to meet any of its original deadlines or budgets, and is still far from finished after more than twice Mr Schröder’s target time-span has elapsed. In fact, after decades of snafus, work on renovating the Pergamon Museum, the jewel in the Museum Island crown with its first-class collection of ancient near-eastern, Hellenistic and Islamic art, only started last year.” The publication says the museum’s renovation could now take “40 years, perhaps even more.” Ouch.

DIVINE INTERVENTION. It’s been reported that Ukrainian museum worker Olena Pekh was released from a Russian prison in June, years after she was locked up for espionage charges that were slammed as “absurd” by the Ukrainian and Polish National Committee of the International Council of Museums. Her release has “shed light on the plight of other forcibly disappeared Ukrainian culture workers, The Art Newspaper writes. “Pekh worked at the art museum in Horlivka, a city in eastern Ukraine that was a flashpoint in the battle between Russian-backed forces and the Ukrainian military during the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. A Ukrainian citizen, Pekh had moved to Odesa, but was detained in 2018 when she went to Russian-controlled territory near Horlivka to visit her sick mother. In 2020, she was sentenced to 13 years in prison on charges of state treason against the Russian-controlled Donetsk People’s Republic.” She was released along with nine others, including two Ukrainian Catholic priests. Their release was mediated by Pope Francis and the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

THE DIGEST

Silver-haired art market veterans reminiscing about their lives gone by seems to be in vogue. Michael Findlay’s memoir, Portrait of an Art Dealer as a Young Man, was released not so long ago. Now New York art dealer Paula Cooper has opened up about her path to power.[Artnet News]

ARTnews recently published an article titled “Eight Essential Book About AI,” but if you’re looking for something more analogue, how about The Art Newspaper’s list of best art books to be hitting the shelves this fall? [The Art Newspaper]

Jerry Saltz has reviewed artist Abigail Goldman’s “micro-renderings of scenes of carnage, created at 1:87 scale… In one tableau that could have come out of Breaking Bad, a shipping storage container in a gravel field contains a bloody corpse and a woman with her hands up as two gunmen nearby take aim.” [Vulture]

A headline-making wedding spat, as a bride who commissioned her artist pal to paint a wedding portrait of her has refused to pay due to its “sexualized” nature. [Independent]

ART ATTACK. A retired, 84-year-old teacher is studying art at York College in the UK after rediscovering her love of the subject. She was inspired to return to school by her grandson. She said she hopes to enroll at university, which means she’ll be 90 when she graduates. “I don’t know whether I’d be any good at it,” Heather Monaghan told the BBC. “In my head there was a voice saying ‘you’re no good at it.’” Her grandson, Jake, is also at York College. The octogenarian said the two-year program has given her a new lease of life and she’s met fellow students of all ages. “It’s so stimulating to do something as creative as this, it’s brilliant,” Monaghan said. [BBC]