VISUAL

2,500-Year-Old Golden Helmet Stolen Last Year Has Been Found

A gang of robbers used explosives to break into the Drents Museum in the northern Netherlands in January of last year. They smashed display cases and made off with the 5th-century BC golden Helmet of Coțofenești and three gold bracelets. The announcement was made by star art detective Arthur Brand. - CBS News

Lego Set To Release Its Largest-Ever Set, Of Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia In Barcelona

News of the upcoming set, part of the company’s Architecture series, was leaked by a long-time leaker known as Chief Wiggum, whose predictions have proven true in the past. - Dezeen

Trump And The Golden Idol In His Proposed “Library”

There is one recent development upon which we really should all agree — erecting a gold statue of President Trump in the middle of his proposed presidential library is a No Good, Very Bad Idea. - Los Angeles Times

You Can’t Sell Famous Stolen Art. So Why Steal It?

The items stolen are clearly valuable. But, as an expert in the governance of criminal markets, I can tell you acquiring the goods is only the first step. Turning this loot into cash is fraught with risk. - The Conversation

Met Museum’s First-Ever Native American Curator Resigns

Patricia Norby had been hired to great fanfare, as both the first person to hold the role at the Met and the first Native American to be hired as a curator by the institution. Her appointment was seen as both a watershed and as a response to criticism from various Native American tribes. - ARTnews

Dalí’s Largest Painting Acquired By Dalí Museum In Florida

The Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg paid $293,240 for his 13-panel, four-canvas, 65’x100’ set for Bacchanale, which he called his first “paranoiac-critical ballet” and which premiered at the Metropolitan Opera House in 1939. Dalí also designed costumes and wrote the scenario for the work; choreography was by Léonide Massine. - Artnet

How Denmark’s Museum Funding Has Shifted To Visitor Numbers

There are now three criteria for an institution to secure—and retain—government subsidies. It must welcome a minimum of 10,000 annual visitors; have a minimum annual income of 4m kroner ($600,000) (3m kroner on islands with less than 10,000 inhabitants); and publish at least one peer-reviewed research paper every three years. - The Art Newspaper

Gold Toilet Appears On The National Mall

This toilet, spray-painted gold and set on a faux-marble pedestal, is the latest in a series of protest artworks and installations taking aim at President Donald Trump and his administration. A plaque on each side of the structure reads: a Throne Fit for a King. - Washington Post

Trump Unveils Plans For His Presidential Library In Miami

A red, white and blue spire sits atop the multistory tower. The library is set to feature golden escalators, a golden statue of the president raising his fist in the air and several aircraft, including what appears to be one of the jets used as Air Force One. - The Wall Street Journal

The World’s 100 Most Visited Museums In 2025: Some Surprises Among The Perennials

The Louvre is still no. 1, with the Vatican Museums a distant second; the National Museum in Seoul surpassed the British Museum to take third place. Attendance at some legacy institutions still hasn’t recovered from COVID, but some new museums are popular, and numbers keep growing in Asia and Latin America. - The Art Newspaper

Is There A New Rembrandt At The Art Institute Of Chicago?

A portrait, currently on loan to the Institute, in a UK collection that has long been dismissed as a workshop copy of an almost identical painting by Rembrandt was, in fact, also painted by the Dutch master, according to a leading scholar. (Scholars at the Art Institute are not yet convinced.) - The Guardian

Big Art Heist In Italy

Four hooded thieves forced their way through a first floor door in the museum’s Villa of Masterpiece overnight between March 22 and 23, but the museum chose to keep the audacious heist a secret, the police spokesperson told CNN. - CNN

When Art Meets Pantone: The Science of Seeing Red

What happens when something as intuitive as color gets the full industrial treatment? Turns out defining 'blue' requires lab coats, corporate committees, and aesthetic philosophers. Welcome to the bureaucracy of beauty. - The Wall Street Journal

Artists Developed Nuclear Photography (Results May Vary)

Slow War Against the Nuclear State excavates the visual complicity between art and annihilation. These cultural archaeologists prove that the camera didn't just capture history—it helped make the bomb possible. Click, boom. - Hyperallergic

The Design Errors In Trump’s White House Ballroom

The hurried reviews, with construction cranes already swiveling above the White House grounds, are an abrupt departure from how new monuments, museums and even modest renovations have been designed and refined in the capital for decades. And the ballroom will be worse off for it, architects warn. - The New York Times

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