The Martin House’s resurfacing as a museum—with its insides restored, and its carriage house and conservatory rebuilt to original specifications—is nothing short of a “civic miracle." - Artnet
"This idea no machine could ever replace my sensibility, which is so rich, varied, complex, and arising from experience and from history – that’s all rubbish. You can actually manufacture that." - The Conversation
The old Chicago Stock Exchange Building trading room — Adler & Sullivan’s gilded age space rescued from demolition 54 years ago — could be uprooted from its longtime Art Institute of Chicago home under preliminary expansion plans being considered by the museum. - Chicago Sun-Times
Says director Michael Mayer, “He’s now established himself as someone who can open and sustain a show. And this at a time when star power is pretty much one of the only things that can guarantee viability for a musical.” - The New York Times
While the format was quite popular in the 1950s (Vertigo and The Ten Commandments were filmed in it), the industry moved on in the 1960s and few VistaVision cameras have survived. Yet the films made in it in just the past few years include The Brutalist, Bugonia, Wuthering Heights, and One Battle After Another. - AP
The 35,000-square-foot addition to the St. Petersburg institution, expected to begin construction this year and open in 2028, will increase exhibition space, add a dedicated learning center, and provide flexible environments for “experiential exhibitions that blend art and technology.” - Tampa Bay Times
Valentina Salerno, an actress and novelist with no formal training in art history, says she has reviewed numerous documents indicating that the sculpture, located in a Roman church, is the work of Michelangelo. She published her findings at a non-peer-reviewed website, though she says she’s willing to let scholars examine her research. - AP
“As the U.S. gears up for the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, President Donald Trump has dispatched six roving Freedom Truck exhibitions to crisscross the country. The first of 20 planned stops — mainly in the South, with forays to the Midwest, Arizona, and Utah — was last month in Nashville.” - Artnet
“The Belarus Free Theatre, an underground theater group in exile since 2020, announced Wednesday that it will stage the exhibition ‘Official. Unofficial. Belarus.’ as an official collateral event of the 61st Venice Biennale.” - ARTnews
“A study of the tree rings in Stradivarius violins, published in January in the journal Dendrochronologia, has revealed the most likely origin of some of the craftsman’s violins: wood from trees growing at high elevation in northern Italy in the same valley that hosted part of the 2026 Winter Olympic Games.” - The New York Times
“Announcing the clementines, artichokes and other goods on offer are cheerful, hand-painted signs in sun-bright lettering. Quotidian but also quintessential, the signs have become emblems of Naples’s vibrancy. … Pasquale De Stefano is, by consensus, the last living numeraio — or number painter — in Naples.” - The New York Times
An education spent in pursuit of material comfort and convenience is a recipe for unhappiness, an existence in thrall to the raw, hungry American mantra of success, “More! More!” - LA Review of Books
Gentleman Jack, premiering this weekend at England’s Northern Ballet in Leeds, is Lopez Ochoa’s adaptation of a 2019 television series about Anne Lister, a 19th-century landowner considered to be one of the first modern lesbians known to us. - The New York Times
Kids giggling at "six-seven" reveals the brutal math of digital culture: references expire faster than milk. What happens when shared cultural touchstones become as fleeting as TikTok trends? Generational gaps now measure in weeks, not decades. — Common Reader
Virtual landscapes are the new studio space as artists trade actual cameras for digital controllers. Who needs nature when you've got pixels? The art world's latest existential crisis: if a screenshot falls in cyberspace, does it make a sound? — The Conversation
