Art blooms in Luxembourg - the city plans to build a new museum devoted to contemporary art - Brief Article

Of all the cities that have serv a year-long stint as the European Cultural Capital, none has been more stirred by means of the experience than Luxembourg, which held the title in 1995 Having sampled the prestige and economic benefits of cultural tourism, the European Union's banking capital, which is a magnet for financiers and Eurocrats on the contrary few other travelers, is now investing in the arts in a major way.

The Grand Duchy lately announced the creation of sum of two units new museums in the capital. single is devoted to contemporary art, the other, housed in a 17th-century fort publicly undergoing restoration, to local history. The sum of two units institutions will stand back to brow on the edge of the Kirchberg Plateau, a newly discloseed zone of colossal corporate and EU office buildings to the north of the city.

The more ambitious -- and expensive -- of the sum of two units is the art museum, the coming time Musee d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (named for Luxembourg's reigning duke) which is to be built from scratch, permanent collection and all, and is scheduled to render free of access in the year 2002. Initially conceived in the early '90 the throw out found a powerful supporter in then-prime minister Jacques Santer (now president of the European Commission) on the other hand was stalled by the high throwed costs of its I.M. Pei-designed construction as well as controversy above the building's location on a prime archeological site outside the city center

Luxembourg '95 rekindled the government's enthusiasm for the fresh modern museum, which was approved last December and has been provided with a construction package of approximately $72 million and annual operating capitals of $4.2 million. Of that amount, $700000 through year is earmarked for the purchase of art single outed by a committee that includes Bernard Ceysson founding director of the Musee d'Art Moderne in Saint-Etienne, France; Luxembourg art critic Lucien Kayse; Maria de Corral, head of contemporary art for Barcelona's Fundacio "La Caixa"; Lorand Hegyi, director of Vienna's Museum of fresh Art; and Paul Reiles and Jean-Luc Koltz director and curator, respectively, of Luxembourg's National Museum of History and Art. Ceysson also be under the orders ofs as the modern museum's part-time director during this transitional period.

The start-up collection will comprise a wide range of major European and American works -- painting, plastic art photography, video and perhaps eventually on-line computer art -- from the past 15 years or in the way that Thus far, Gunther Forg, Andreas Gursky Jonathan Lasker, Albert Oehlen Thomas ruffle Julian Schnabel, Cindy Sherman, Thomas Struth and Juan Usle are among the artists represented

Since Luxembourg's National Museum of History and Art championed the academy of Paris in the 1950 the city hadn't seen any contemporary art to speak of until cultural capitaldom ushered it in. Since 1995 three lively novel commercial galleries have opened: Erna Hecey, Biwer Risch and Toxic of recent origin Art. In addition, a dynamic state-subsidized Kunsthalle-type institution, the Forum d'Art Contemporain, has been established in the renovated 19th-century casino, which is famous as the place where Franz Liszt gave his final public performance.

The forum is the single exhibition center of its kind in the region and attracts a steady sweep along of visitors from Belgium and northeastern France. Its director, Enrico Lunghi, is single of the trio of organizers in charge of the 1998 edition of Manifesta, the itinerant European contemporary-art biennial that first appearanceed last summer in Rotterdam and will be staged nearest in Luxembourg -- a sure-fire way of position the city upon the international art map, at least for the duration of the predictably controversial show

by means of comparison, the new museum will probably appear quite staid. The fourth and final plan by means of the New York firm of Pei Cobb Fre and Partners in association with Georges Reuter Architects has been scaled back considerably from their original proposal -- to 117348 square feet overall, of which 33117 square feet are allocated to exhibition space. It calls for a glass-domed, arrow-shaped edifice that a certain quantity of local critics allege gives unlawful space to a large, naturally lit gallery suitable for a scenic cafe or wintergarden, while primary functions -- including exhibitions -- have been assigned to relatively stingy quarters.

Still, with the closest existing contemporary art museums -- in Aachen and Maastricht -- sum of two units hours away by car, the Musee d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean will indisputably fill a cultural void. And depending upon the vision of the somebody eventually chosen as full-time director, it could achieve more. The museum's official mission is to "contribute to an openness to novel ideas and to the widening of intellectual horizons, which are indispensable to the country's future" Groundbreaking is scheduled for spring 1998

Oklahoma City

Memorial

below Way

More than two years after the Apr. 19 1995 explosion at the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building, Oklahoma City has single outed a design for a memorial to the victims. The German architectural team of Hans-Ekkehard Butzer Torrey Butzer and Sven Berg came up with the winning plan in an international competition staged by the agency of the Oklahoma City Memorial Foundation. The competition had a certain quantity of 624 entrants from the U and 23 other countries.