Lars Klove for The New York Times

The Donnell branch, above, in Midtown was to be razed as part of a deal that would benefit the central library.

Bigger Woes for Library, as a Buyer Backs Out

By ROBIN POGREBIN

A decision by Orient-Express Hotels Ltd. to back out of its plans to buy the former Donnell Library building in Midtown Manhattan is likely to deprive the New York Public Library of millions it was counting on.

Exhibition Review

Darwin’s Wake Splashed Artists, Too

By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN

As you walk through this exhibition, you may not learn anything new about his theories, but you will begin to understand that our ways of seeing have evolved because of the power of Charles Darwin’s vision.

Slide Show

Fighting On to Preserve Morningside Heights

By ROBIN POGREBIN

The city landmarks agency has yet to be convinced that Morningside Heights is worthy of protection.

Twist in Sale of Relics Has China Winking

By MARK McDONALD and CAROL VOGEL

The bidder for two prized Chinese sculptures surfaced, saying it was his patriotic duty to refuse to pay the $40 million winning bid.

“Blue Mustang,” a sculpture at Denver International Airport.

And Behold a Big Blue Horse? Many in Denver Just Say Neigh

By KIRK JOHNSON

A statue of a giant male horse at Denver International Airport is freaking more than a few people out.

Tehching Hsieh during his year in a cage in 1978 and ’79, his first performance-art project. The cage, its contents and documentation of the performance are on display at MoMA.

A Caged Man Breaks Out at Last

By DEBORAH SONTAG

Tehching Hsieh’s performance art in the 1970s and ’80s, the stuff of legend, is getting new appreciation from mainstream museums.

Images Separated at Birth?

By JORI FINKEL

Little attention has been paid to American photography’s relationship to Edward Hopper. That is, until now.

The Mugrabi family, from left: Alberto, David and the patriach, Jose.

Is Anybody Buying Art These Days?

By ERIC KONIGSBERG

The Mugrabis are. Jose and his sons, who own one of the world’s largest collections, are convinced that treating a few contemporary artists like commodities is smart business, even in a down market.

The Medium

Photo Negative

By VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN

Google misses an opportunity with its Life magazine archive.

Post a Comment

POMP AND POP A 1985 screen print of Queen Elizabeth II is on display in “Andy Warhol: Pop Politics” at the Neuberger Museum of Art.

Getting the Picture of Andy Warhol’s Work

By BENJAMIN GENOCCHIO

A pair of exhibits, one featuring snapshots, the other showcasing political portraits, shed light on the artist.

Times Topics: Andy Warhol

The First Action Heroes

By DOUGLAS WOLK

An anthology of the earliest superhero stories; a “serious parody” of old superhero comics by Jonathan Lethem; and the final volume of Grant Morrison’s “All-Star Superman.”

One of three sections of wall paintings by Bruno Schulz on display at the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem.

Behind Fairy Tale Drawings, Walls Talk of Unspeakable Cruelty

By ETHAN BRONNER

An exhibition in Jerusalem of works by Bruno Schulz includes wall paintings he created under Nazi coercion shortly before he was killed.

Slide Show: Painting Under Coercion

The artist Adel Abdessemed, right, in a series of photographs showing wild animals roaming the streets of Paris in 2006.

Exhibition With Disturbing Videos of Animals Leads to Protests in Italy

By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO

An exhibition of works by the artist Adel Abdessemed has been prevented from opening because it includes clips of animals dying violently.

Noel Martin, Inventive Catalog Designer, Dies at 86

By STEVEN HELLER

Mr. Martin was a nationally known graphic designer who was one of the first to modernize art museum catalogs and who simplified the cluttered look of industrial trade catalogs.

Sverre Fehn, 84, Architect of Modern Nordic Forms, Dies

By WILLIAM GRIMES

Mr. Fehn’s talent for applying Modernist ideas to traditional Nordic forms and materials made him the most prominent Norwegian architect of the postwar era.

Museum and Gallery Listings

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

Selective listings from art critics of The New York Times.

“The Birth of Saint John the Baptist” (about 1660), a religious narrative by the Spanish artist Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, shows the infant surrounded by nursemaids, angels and his father.

Sharing Reflections of Tycoon Taste and Wealth

By KAREN ROSENBERG

The newly loaned European paintings from the Norton Simon Museum bring a whiff of fresh air into the Frick.

Art Review

Martin Kippenberger: The Problem
Perspective “Spider-Man Studio” is part
of this wide-ranging retrospective opening at MoMA on Sunday.

Live Hard, Create Compulsively, Die Young

By HOLLAND COTTER

The Museum of Modern Art offers an excellent retrospective of Martin Kippenberger’s messy and raucous works.

Slide Show: Redefining Art

The Brücke, at the Neue Galerie, includes the oil painting “Fränzi in Front of Carved Chair,” by
this German art movement’s leader, Ernst
Ludwig Kirchner.

Guys Who Put Art in Party Animal

By ROBERTA SMITH

The collective rawness of early 20th-century German art still startles, as seen in “Brücke,” at the Neue Galerie.

Slide Show: The Beginning of German Expressionism

Art Review

Looking Back at France’s Own Bronze Age

By KEN JOHNSON

The French bronze sculptures of the 17th and 18th centuries now on view at the Met display a slavish obeisance to the official culture of their times.

Inside Art

A Venetian Canvas Joins Met Treasures

By CAROL VOGEL

With the purchase of “The Baptism of Christ” by Bassano, the Met has filled a gap in its collection of works from the Venetian high Renaissance.

China Fails to Halt Sale of Looted Relics at Paris Auction

By STEVEN ERLANGER

Two bronze heads originally looted from China were sold for nearly $35.9 million without commissions after fierce protests and a failed legal challenge.

Abroad

Portraits of Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu painted during his dictatorship, at Bucharest’s National Museum of Contemporary Art.

Romania Shrugs Off Reminder of Its Past

By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN

The son of Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu has won a lawsuit to get back artworks that belonged to the family before Romania’s revolution in 1989.

Art Review

“Obama ’08,” an inkjet print by Jonathan Horowitz.

When a Can of Worms Is Opened, an Artist Does Some Fishing

By HOLLAND COTTER

Jonathan Horowitz's retrospective at the P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center is a survey that looks as though it were made of many random parts, but feels of a piece.

Slide Show: Random Parts, Coherent Whole

From the Archives, a Portrait of a Pop-Art Muse

By COLIN MOYNIHAN

The only known archive of items associated with the ’60s pop-art muse Candy Darling has been given to the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.

A 1911 Henri Matisse painting was sold at auction on Monday in Paris for $40.9 million.

Saint Laurent Art Sale Brings In $264 Million

By STEVEN ERLANGER

The first round of auctions of items from Yves Saint Laurent’s art collection brought record prices for works by several artists, including Henri Matisse.

Ian Peck, left, and Baird Ryan of Art Capital Group with art, once collateral, that it now owns.

That Old Master? It’s at the Pawnshop

By ALLEN SALKIN

Owners are realizing that a painting can bring in much-needed cash when used as collateral.

A visitor to Iraq’s National Museum on Monday. Only 8 of the museum’s 26 galleries are open.

Iraq Museum Reopens Six Years After Looting

By STEVEN LEE MYERS

With many halls closed and many pieces still missing, the opening reflects how far Iraq’s recovery has to go.

Video: The Iraq Museum Reopens

Exhibition Review

This poster, on display in “State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda” at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, translates as “He is to blame for the war!”

Nazis’ ‘Terrible Weapon,’ Aimed at Minds and Hearts

By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN

A major new exhibition at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington puts powerful pieces of Nazi propaganda on display.

Slide Show: The Propagandists' Tools

Met Museum to Close Shops, Freeze Hiring

By CAROL VOGEL; Compiled by DAVE ITZKOFF

The Metropolitan Museum of Art will close seven more of its satellite shops around the country, bringing to 15 the number it has closed in the last year.

Las Vegas Art Museum Will Close

Compiled by DAVE ITZKOFF

The museum joins the growing roster of cultural institutions that have suspended their operations in the face of a weakening economy.

Renaldo Kuhler in his office at a museum in Raleigh, N.C.

His Secret World, Opening to Tourists

By JOHN STRAUSBAUGH

The small sovereign nation of Rocaterrania, as imagined by artist Renaldo Kuhler, is about to go public.

Architecture Review

Alice Tully Hall This re-envisioned concert hall opens at Lincoln Center on Sunday, with a design by Diller Scofidio & Renfro that refers to the past but doesn’t shirk the present as it engages with the street.

Boxy to Bold: A Concert Hall Busts Out

By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF

The womblike performance space of Alice Tully Hall, its surfaces flush with new life, makes it hard to remember the dreariness of the 1969 original.

Art Review

Why University Museums Matter

By HOLLAND COTTER

In a bleak economy, the university museum offers a model for convention-challenging exhibitions that could carry museums, lighter and brighter, into the future.

Slide Shows: Picasso, Images and Language | The Art of Tea

Art Review

Art Show Ken Price’s works at this annual fair include bulbous painted ceramic sculptures and small landscape images at the Park Avenue Armory.

Rewards and Clarity in a Show of Restraint

By ROBERTA SMITH

Razzle-dazzle spectacle, stampeding collectors and buy-it-now pressure-cooking has never been the Art Show’s style. But the times may be catching up with it.

Art Review

From China, Iraq and Beyond, but Is It Art?

By KEN JOHNSON

Daria Martin’s film “Minotaur” is one of four new commissions at the New Museum in what amounts to an uneven and meager whole-museum exhibition.

Abroad

A William Klein ad for Dim lingerie, known for sexy images.

In France Ads Aim at Heart, Not Wallet

By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN

An exhibition of French television commercials in Paris suggests that the ads speak to French culture no less than French literature or music does.

Art Review

Performance 1: Tehching Hsieh, at the Museum of Modern Art, displays a wooden cage like one in which the artist spent a year, doing nothing.

A Year in a Cage: A Life Shrunk to Expand Art

By ROBERTA SMITH

A small exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art features the photographs, taken daily, that documented the performance artist Tehching Hsieh's year spent in a cell-like cage.

Picasso’s “Musical Instruments on a Table,” on wall at center, is part of the Yves Saint Laurent collection to be sold next week.

Saint Laurent and His Art Still Make a Sensation

By STEVEN ERLANGER

The city of light lives also by reflected glory, and rarely has an event been more “mediatized” than next week’s auction of the collection of Yves Saint Laurent.