In a startling and largely gratifying way, LACMA has done what the poet Audre Lorde, alluding to a different but not unrelated aspect of patriarchal dominance, deemed impossible: used the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house. The change goes far beyond a remodel. It’s a reinvention, a recalibration, a revisionist fever dream. - Los Angeles Times
What’s really wrong with Trump’s arch isn’t something that is always wrong with victory arches but, rather, something that is always wrong with all the architecture of autocracy. - The New Yorker
“(The donor is) Mitchell Rales, the 69-year-old billionaire art collector and co-founder of health care company Danaher. The contribution is the largest programming-related donation in the NGA’s history and will serve to indefinitely fund the museum’s Across the Nation program, which loans artwork to partner museums.” - The Washington Post (Yahoo!)
Lynda Roscoe Hartigan, who begins her term after Labor Day and who is currently CEO of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, in fact began her career at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, where she spent two decades and eventually rose to become chief curator. - ARTnews
While the V&A complies with all legal minimum-wage requirements, with some workers paid a living wage or above, campaigners say some of the lowest-paid contractors in London are not in receipt of the living wage. The UK minimum wage is £12.71 an hour and the living wage in London is £14.80 an hour. - The Guardian
Using artificial intelligence, researchers analyzed The Baptism of Christ at the microscopic level, looking for trends in the texture of the paint at the resolution of a single paintbrush bristle. The results suggest El Greco painted the majority of The Baptism himself—but some experts caution more research is needed. - Scientific American
The exhibitions showcase both the traditional and the unexpected, from portraiture to multimedia installations, from founding documents to found objects. Across the country, the joy, sorrow and humor of the nation’s history are on display. - The New York Times
A set of 13th-century murals from the Sijena Monastery in Spain were taken to Barcelona for safekeeping during the Spanish Civil War and are now in the National Art Museum of Catalonia — which is defying a court order to return them, saying the artworks are too fragile to be moved. - ARTnews
Plans for Trump’s National Garden Of American Heroes still haven’t been submitted to the agencies which must approve it. The choice of site hasn’t even been finalized. Artists and foundries that applied to work on the sculptures haven't heard anything back — and the statues are supposed to be finished by June. - CNN
Enter Michael Govan, who joined LACMA in 2006. He wooed Swiss architect Peter Zumthor to conceive of a better LACMA, convinced the county to put in $125 million, and raised more than $500 million in private funds. Now, nearly 20 years later, Los Angeles has a new museum. What could be wrong with that? - LA Material
It is a free-form essay in concrete and glass, with no formal entrance, no front or back. Its undulating form has earned its share of abuse, and it has been compared to a pancake or an amoeba. If anything, it is a playful building, out for a 900-foot stroll. - The Wall Street Journal
The Geffen’s architecture overwhelms its objects. Entombed in a concrete bunker—one of the stand-alone galleries—and battling hulking walls and cavernous space, one of LACMA’s greatest masterpieces, Georges de La Tour’s “The Magdalen With the Smoking Flame” (c. 1635-37), doesn’t stand a chance. - The Wall Street Journal
There’s a “national wave of new children’s museums, expansions of existing institutions and a broadened lineup of programming aimed at young visitors.” - The New York Times
“Transparency, porousness — all the buzzwords of architecture today are antithetical to security. It’s a paradox implicit to museum design today.” - The New York Times
The Commission of Fine Arts, which is filled with Mr. Trump’s appointees, has an advisory role on the design of the project, but no enforcement power. It asked the administration to return with updated drawings before a final vote on the project. - The New York Times
