Stupid art tricks

Art as spectacle is all well and good, but what happens when museums get into the game, neglecting their mandate to preserve in favor of publicity stunts like this?

Brothers Ben and Alex Haworth turned their north London home into an art gallery on Wednesday when they won a Canaletto masterpiece to hang in their home.

The brothers . . . won the chance to look after Canaletto's Regatta on the Grand Canal (1730-35) in a competition to attract new audiences to art. The painting, worth millions of pounds, shows a crowd enjoying a regatta on Venice's Grand Canal and measures 2.2 by 1.5 metres.

It was moved it to Islington from its usual home at the Bowes Museum in County Durham by the National Art Collections Fund, an independent arts charity. The fund has been running a six-week promotion bringing artworks out of their usual homes. . .

The painting arrived at the brothers' ex-council house at 7.30am - along with a champagne breakfast. It was accompanied by security guards and an expert curator to fill the brothers in on their temporary exhibit.

The Berlin Egyptian Museum allowing its iconic bust of Nefertiti to be used as a component in a modern art assemblage would fall into a similar classification.

Posted by David on July 11, 2003 11:12 AM