ARTnews is a major publication in the contemporary art scene. Published monthly in New York City, it's an energetic explorer of the sometimes bizarre collage that is today's art world.
Money makes the world go round, and the art world is no exception. A lot of art news is about disputes over big money, and so you'll find a number of stories in ARTnews about these fights.
I've been leafing through the April issue, and find reports on accusations of fiscal mismanagement and trafficking in stolen antiquities at the J. Paul Getty Trust in Los Angeles, operator of the Getty Museum; the controversy over authentication of a number of supposed Jackson Pollock canvases that surfaced four years ago; and a couple of stories dealing with the return of art works confiscated from Jewish collectors by the Nazis before and during World War II.
Amid all this depressing stuff are a couple of nice pieces about small museums with rich collections that are expanding their exhibition spaces despite being in fairly restrictive physical locations. One is New York City's Morgan Library, filled with treasures amassed by the legendary J.P. Morgan; the other is the 85-year-old Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, the country's first modern art museum.
This issue of ARTnews also has a fairly long feature on Berlin's recent development as a center of contemporary art, lured by the availability of large spaces at low cost, something that has appealed to artists over the ages. Reporter J.S. Marcus notes that there's a "near total lack of local collectors" of contemporary art in Berlin, but adds that the Internet as a vehicle for displaying art has solved that problem for the artists and gallery owners in the city.
Other articles examine contentious issues in contemporary art, such as the use of photography and software like Photoshop to help create paintings, and the increasing tendency of artists to work in a number of genres at the same time, including video, presenting found objects and using of all sorts of materials (one artist recently exhibited works employing batik, oil paint, thread and KY Jelly).
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