“Heavy J was creating a poster ... for the animated fairytale The Little Mermaid. The man with the knife wasn’t a killer but the film’s kind-hearted prince, Eric. The skull was also unrelated to the story. ‘We add more to make people interested,’ said Heavy J.” - The Guardian (UK)
Yikes: "Video footage ... shows water pooling on the gallery floor as staff members move quickly to place buckets beneath active leaks, as well as water streaming down the didactic for ‘New Humans: Memories of the Future.’” - ARTnews
What the actual heck? "The turn-of-the-millennium digital photo is hard to mistake: a bit grainy, sometimes fuzzy, overexposed in the center with a blinding flash, often date-stamped in red or orange. A nostalgic haze gives photos the feel of an instant memory.” - NPR
“While Surrealism is figured as a style in popular imagination — trippy, dreamy, and escapist, detached from reality in every way — (the exhibition) ‘In the Very Bowels of Change: Surrealism and Antifascism’ reminds just how much the movement was formed in response to the politics of its time.” - Art in America
“The Metropolitan Museum of Art has tested positive for traces of the bacteria linked to a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, health officials announced Tuesday. The bacteria were previously detected at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, as authorities continue searching for the source of the outbreak.” - ARTnews
MONA, owned and run (in famously quirky style) by gambling mogul David Walsh in Australia’s island state, is slated to open its first satellite museum on the banks of the Chao Phraya River in the Thai capital in 2029. - Artnet
Ono debuted the work at Carnegie Hall in 1964, sitting motionless onstage as people took turns cutting off her clothes with scissors. The Broad in Los Angeles is presenting Cut Piece twice this weekend across the street at REDCAT. The performer, known as MPA, is scared — but not of the scissors. - The Guardian
The museum began work on “High Style: The Art of Cannabis Pipes” three years ago, thinking that increasing legalization and acceptance of marijuana made the timing good. Yet the show was cancelled this spring; museum management says it was for logistical reasons. The question: the logistics of what exactly? - The New York Times
The privately-owned Gelman Santander Collection, whose 68 pieces include 10 paintings by Frida Kahlo along with works by Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco, and others, is scheduled to spend two years touring Europe. Some citizens, unconvinced that the art will come home, are suing to keep it in Mexico. - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
Over the weekend, a European Union commission followed up on its earlier threats to cancel a €2 million grant to the Venice Biennale, citing Russia’s participation in the event this year as its reasoning. - ARTnews
“The suspects, named locally as Abdoulaye N and Ghelamallah A, claimed they had broken into the Louvre’s Apollo gallery on the orders of a client they refused to name out of fear for their families. … The alleged mastermind … ‘wasn’t happy’ with the outcome. ‘He thought we could have taken more.’” - The Guardian
“The U.S. Justice Department said on Monday that former High chief operating officer Brady Lum pleaded guilty to a single charge of felony theft. Prosecutors accused him of stealing more than $600,000 from the museum by doctoring invoices and approving personal purchase transactions.” - Georgia Public Broadcasting
Initially, the administrators discussed removing some of the pieces from the show. But then the provost texted that he wanted to take down the entire exhibition instead. Michael McPherson wrote, "I think it'll be easier to manage any barking from our friends in Austin." - NPR
A painter from Manchester, who focused on the working class, isn’t necessarily what Londoners think. “What we’re hoping to do is actually to bust a few myths. … wasn’t just an industrial painter. He certainly wasn’t naive or isolated.” - The Guardian (UK)
