CONTEMPORARY ART

Any bright ideas?

Dan Flavin’s light installations, currently at the hayward gallery, london, transform neon tubes into art – but what does a collector do when the bulbs blow and can’t be replaced?

ARCHITECTURE

Streamlined

If architects ought to learn from machines, why are attractive buses scrapped, and buildings given doorways that trip people up?

A gun fired with beauty

Walter J. Karcheski, Jr. discusses a rare Portuguese fowling gun of exceptional quality, signed by its maker, Manoel do Nacimento Gomes, and dated 1794. It combines a fine Spanish barrel with outstanding silver mounts inspired by English neo-classicism.

Contemporary design

Collect, Europe’s only fair devoted to contemporary applied arts, returns this February to the V&A. Amicia de Moubray talks to the Crafts Council – the fair’s organisers – and a selection of the exhibitors about its far-reaching impact on the market and its significance for emerging talent.

A New Art in an Old Civilisation

The opening exhibition at the Villa draws on the rich resources of the Getty’s photography collections to show how early photographers responded to the monuments of ancient civilisations, as the exhibition’s co-curator Claire L. Lyons reveals.

Ancient art

Karol Wight, the Getty Museum’s acting curator of antiquities, introduces a selection of the major recent acquisitions that have gone on show in the Getty Villa, and discusses the department’s collecting philosophy.

Interview with Michael Brand

The reopening of the Getty Villa coincides with the appointment of a new director of the Getty museums, Michael Brand. Louise Nicholson talks to him about his plans to expand their engagement with both Los Angeles and the wider world.

A villa re-imagined

Louise Nicholson talks to the architects of the project, Machado and Silvetti, about the thinking behind the Villa’s restoration and expansion. Has the enormous care that has gone into the project produced a rewarding experience for visitors?