Taking advantage of an annual religious celebration that brings tens of thousands to Messina’s streets, thieves made off with three of five panels that constitute the Polyptych of San Gregorio as well as a small double-sided devotional painting. - The New York Times
The preservationist group trying to stop President Trump’s White House ballroom urged the Supreme Court to deny the administration’s emergency request to allow construction, calling it “astonishing” on Tuesday. - The Hill
“China's National Cultural Heritage Administration has ordered public museums across the country to strengthen emergency management protocols to protect visitors and artefacts, following a string of power outages and overcrowding incidents during the summer holiday season. The directive follows several infrastructural breakdowns at major cultural institutions.” - The Art Newspaper
“The prosecutor’s office of the republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol is investigating two unnamed researchers, one of them associated with the Hermitage, for war crimes. The prosecutors say they participated in illegal archaeological expeditions in the territory, which has been occupied by Russia since 2014.” - ARTnews
“Snowy/Windy/Spring on Planet Z, the latest installation by the performance artist Marina Abramović, opened earlier this month at New York’s new Balloon Museum, which bills itself as ‘the first permanent home for inflatable art’.” - The Guardian
The museum promised to “bring the museum to you,” and it has delivered not only with its extensive digital collection, free for downloading, sharing and editing with a free Rijksmuseum account, but also with informative series on its website. - Open Culture
Curators at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles have taken those variations as an invitation to judgment. In a series of recent social media posts, the museum is rating the appearances of art-adjacent emojis across different platforms and operating systems, leavening scholarly expertise with a liberal sprinkling of cheek. - The New York Times
Powerhouse Paramatta, a 915 million AUD (US$650 million) museum of applied design and technology, will be Western Sydney’s first major cultural institution. It will open to the public this November 7. - Time Out Sydney
In the morning, good news about an art theft from March. Then came the evening. “Thieves got past the alarm system at Messina's Museo Interdisciplinare Regionale (MuMe), and broke open a security case. They soon left with four wooden panels.” - NPR
“The recovered works are Cézanne’s Still Life with Cherries, which authorities said was valued at about $7m (£5.2m), Renoir’s Fish, valued at $3.5m, and Matisse’s Odalisque on the Terrace.” - The Guardian (UK)
In Chicago, a lone statue of George Washington is now surrounded by “Other Washingtons,” which take the form of blue flags bearing the faces of Black Americans who bear the same last name. - CNN
Of international bodies, Unesco is active in keeping a record of the fate of cultural heritage worldwide, but a record is just a record. Its listing of Russia’s and Israel’s devastation of their hated foes is like watching a historic tragedy unfold in real time. - The Guardian
The Matisse illustrations, made for a limited-edition art book, were taken last December from the Biblioteca Mário de Andrade, where they were part of an exhibition presented jointly with the São Paulo Museum of Modern Art. Also stolen were five engravings by Brazilian artist Candido Portinari; they have not yet been located. - BBC
The Carabinieri have regained possession of Renoir’s “Fish,” Cézanne’s “Still Life with Cherries,” and Matisse’s “Odalisque on the Terrace,” which were stolen from the Magnani Rocca Foundation near Parma this past March. - AP
“Now, in service of an ideology that brooks no deviation from blind nationalism, Passport to Patriotism advances a shallow vision of U.S. identity with all the nuance of a propaganda reel and all the sophistication of the art project your first-grader brought home on Flag Day.” - Slate (MSN)
