Calls to demolish Heatherwick's $200m Vessel
Plus: Vagina Museum needs a new home
Today's edition is presented with Museum Bookstore
Hello - and a warm museum-y welcome to the 22 new subscribers since last week’s edition.
I confess I haven’t been to a museum or gallery for nearly two weeks (I know!) because I’ve been glued to Tokyo 2020. As the Games end on Sunday (boo!) it’s time to get back out there. Where should I go first? Send me your recommendations on Twitter @maxwellmuseums. And my tip for you is to visit the British Museum’s Thomas Becket exhibition before it closes in two weeks.
I might steer clear of Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience currently on in London though, after reading this damning 1-star review in the i - “voyeuristic, distasteful and spectacularly uninformative” they call it. They won’t be putting that on the poster.
As ever, if you find this weekly round-up of news useful, then do share it with someone else who will too. They will thank you for it! And I’ll thank you.
Maxwell
Do you love museum books? As you’re reading this, I’m guessing you do! So visit Museum Bookstore, an online shop specialising in exhibition catalogues from museums across the globe. It has literally thousands, and is a go-to place for museum book lovers as unlike most online bookstores, they handpick their books to only feature the cream of the crop. You’ll find publications from small independent art publishers and famous museums such as the Met, the National Gallery and the Louvre.
This week’s top story
Thomas Heatherwick’s landmark 16-storey $200 million building-cum-sculpture The Vessel in New York City may never reopen again after being closed this week due to a fourth suicide on the site in just 18 months. The Guardian
The attraction had only reopened in May with new safety measures - which included introducing a $10 entry charge - after being closed since January in the wake of earlier suicides. The Telegraph have reported how warnings about the structure’s risk have gone unheard. The New York Times report that safety barriers were designed, but never installed. There are now calls for it to be demolished, including from the Architectural Record editor-in-chief, and the New York Magazine architecture critic who said that “it’s time to dismantle.”
This project has been controversial from the very start, and has been called “one of the most undemocratic civic monuments” in NYC. It’s part of the $25 BILLION Hudson Yards development, described as “a billionaire’s fantasy city.” The Vessel is once again on the fault line between public vs profit - in tragic circumstances.
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This week’s other news
A Turkish influencer says she's being prosecuted in her country for posting photos from a visit to the world-famous Sex Museum in Amsterdam. She’s been summoned to court to face obscenity charges after taking photos of items in the shop. The Museum’s Director calls the situation “absolutely ridiculous.” BBC News
An unprecedented conservation project is to start on one of the UK’s most famous paintings. Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s The Swing - held in London’s Wallace Collection - will undergo the first extensive tests and research in its 250-year history. One of the aims is to discover if a bishop was erased from the very risqué work. The Times
Remember the Marble Arch Mound - AKA London’s “worst tourist attraction” - from last week’s newsletter? The entrance fee for the £2m ‘experience’ has now been scrapped, presumably because no one was ever going to pay it after the disastrous opening. Plus, local councillors have demanded an inquiry into how the mound “so spectacularly flopped.” Too right! The Mirror
HRH the Duchess of Cambridge has contributed two of her own photographs to a new exhibition of images of Holocaust survivors and their families at the Imperial War Museum, in London. The Times
London’s Vagina Museum - the world's first bricks and mortar museum dedicated to vaginas - has turned to Twitter in search of a new home after their lease in Camden has come to an end. Evening Standard
The oldest family photograph ever taken at Stonehenge (from the 1860s!) has been found in the collection of Queen guitarist Brian May. It’s also one of the earliest 3D images. It’s going on display in an English Heritage exhibition at the tourist site, accompanied by the soundtrack of May playing Who Wants To Live Forever on the piano. I mean you couldn’t make it up. Metro
Tickets have finally gone on sale for one of 2021’s most anticipated new museums: the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. It opens next month. CBS Los Angeles
An iceberg has caused havoc for RMS Titanic once more. A huge ice wall, representing the iceberg that caused the “unsinkable” ship to sink in 1912, collapsed this week at the Titanic Museum Attraction in Tennessee. The Guardian. It’s worth clicking through to see the photos of this museum. It’s quite something.
Love art, museums and galleries? Then my newsletter is for you, keeping you up-to-date on what to read - and what to see. Subscribe below (it’s free!)