There is no question about its monumentality. It is at once colossal, haughty and ultimately inscrutable—as a great monument should be. The question is whether it should have been a monument in the first place. - The Wall Street Journal
What went wrong? The short answer is: The art world expanded wildly, but the art market — the total dollar volume of art sales — did not. In fact, if you read the Art Basel/UBS Art Market Report for 2026 carefully, and adjust for inflation, the data shows that the art market has stagnated. - The New York Times
“From 5 p.m. on July 3 (in Manchester), Ai will enter a replica of his 25.92 square-meter cell, recreated by international architecture firm HawkinsBrown. Inside, (over 24 hours,) he’ll sleep, eat, exercise, write, wash, and face interrogation on personal, political, and philosophical matters by four famed journalists.” - Artnet
The Reflecting Pool now evokes the joy of a Green Bay Packers victory. Or a high-school prank. Or St. Patrick’s Day in Chicago.It most certainly is not the gleaming American-flag blue that Trump’s repainting of the pool was supposed to produce. - The Atlantic
Christophe Leribault: “To put it bluntly: despite its imposing majesty and the daily dedication of its staff, the Louvre is running on fumes. Its facilities and infrastructure are reaching the end of their lifespan.” - ARTnews
The annex, opened in 1997 to house two Byzantine frescoes and closed since those works were returned to Cyprus in 2017, will reopen late next year to house long-term, site-specific, immersive installations — the first will be by Teresita Fernández — which will remain in place for roughly five years each. - Houston Chronicle (MSN)
Abraham Bredius, museum director from 1889 to 1909, bequeathed the Mauritshuis 25 of his own Old Master paintings — by Rembrandt, Jan Steen, and others — on condition that the works be displayed and not lent out. Because the museum doesn’t display all of them all the time, Bredius’s heirs sued — and lost. - ArtDependence
For the Obama Presidential Center on the South Side of Chicago, Barack and Michelle Obama commissioned original works by 30 artists from diverse backgrounds, a bold move never seen at such scale at a presidential library. - The Guardian
“A massive Russian missile and drone attack on Kyiv has badly damaged the Dormition Cathedral in the Pechersk Lavra monastery complex, a UNESCO world heritage site and one of Ukraine’s most significant religious and cultural sites.” - The Guardian
After standing in the glow of this new South Side landmark, I admittedly feel like a buzzkill focusing on documents, kind of like visiting the Sistine Chapel and contemplating the plumbing. - The Atlantic
“Among their demands were a section of the museum dedicated to Black (and, in a later, amended statement, Puerto Rican) artists, an artist committee granted curatorial power, a ‘rental fee’ paid to artists for the exhibition of their work and free admission for all.” - The New York Times
“Mora, who is 91 and tiny, wearing head scarves around her weathered face, has clung to a mix of ancestral Indigenous and Spanish traditions.” - The New York Times
“Despite evidence that Neumann did appropriate the Zoellners’ furniture and paintings, he was not convicted; in 1947 he was deported from the Netherlands as an ‘enemy subject’ under the Nazi regime, and emigrated to the United States with his family.” - El País English
