The burial chamber was found at Chan Chan, once the capital of the Chimú people, whose culture flourished on what’s now Peru’s northern coast from the early 10th century CE to 1470. Because the tomb was never looted, researchers will be able to learn more about Chimú society than ever before. - Smithsonian Magazine
“(A family of art collectors) is suing more than a half-dozen individuals and companies across Florida, Philadelphia and Peru, whom they claim served as ‘suppliers, fake authenticators and distributors’ in an elaborate and far-reaching forgery scheme.” - The Wall Street Journal (MSN)
Donors underwrite celebration. Nobody endows a wing to say “it’s complicated.” That’s why the critical museum barely exists as a category. I’d rather build a Howard Zinn People’s History Museum than rehash a heroic retelling of our glorious past, but I have no idea how that gets funded. - Josh Goldblum
The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, which opens this month in Exposition Park, just south of downtown Los Angeles, is a swooping, brain-beggaring, super-sexy, twin-bodied leviathan of a megastructure, white as the gown of Princess Leia, half spaceship, half cetacean, all curves, Shangri-la for skateboarders if they could ever get inside. - The Atlantic
Is it possible to make qualitative judgements in an unbiased way? Maybe not. Some people feel that the whole idea of making judgements is just another form of cultural oppression. On one level, aesthetic preferences are all cultural. Take for one example the preference for consonant music over dissonant—it’s cultural, not intrinsic. - Artnet
The newly vibrant “Stories of St. Francis” were shown to the public last week in the Basilica of Santa Croce, just in time for the 800th anniversary of the saint’s death on Oct. 4. - AP News
“In recent decades, debates over the architecture of the American college and university campus have been nearly as fraught as battles over the National Mall.” - The New York Times
“Museum workers, the police and government officials are rattled. They worry about how to protect France’s cultural patrimony in an era of increasingly violent criminal gangs, some of whom have broken into museums in broad daylight.” - The New York Times
Of course, the “request” came on conservative social media site Truth Social. It “underscores a perception that he sees himself as curator-in-chief of the nation’s national museum.” - The Guardian (UK)
What could justify moving the fragile tapestry to Britain this year? Probably politics: “Foot by foot, fiber by fiber, this is the material proof of England’s entwinement with the continent 21 miles from its coast.” - The New York Times
Shouting and a shoving match erupted as Italian-American artist Sergio Furnari unveiled his unpermitted life-size bronze memorial to slain right-wing activist Charlie Kirk in Times Square on Thursday. - ARTnews
As French Culture Minister Catherine Pegard put it, “A break of two threads over a length of 70 meters was reported. … So today, if we say it is in the same state after having arrived in London as it was when it left Bayeux, I think we’re not very wrong.” - Le Monde
Ten feet tall, on a 13-foot-high platform, made of bronze, painted, and striding with purpose. Tschabalala Self’s Lady in Blue is this year’s sculpture for the empty fourth column in Trafalgar Square. - CNN
