The Dresden prosecutor’s office announced on July 21 that the two activists, Jakob Beyer and Maike Grunst, would be fined €1,500 ($1,600) each for the act. - Artnet
Yasmeen Lari, who's spent nearly two decades creating and promoting architecture for the poor using inexpensive traditional materials and techniques, has designed improved, flood-resistant huts made of mud, rice husks, lime, and bamboo for thousands of villagers. Each costs less than $90. - The Guardian
"Calder Gardens, the long-awaited showcase for the art of native son Alexander Calder, is finally moving toward reality. The new museum will be located on Center City's Benjamin Franklin Parkway, between 21st and 22nd Streets across from the Barnes Foundation and near several major cultural institutions." - MSN (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
“I have never seen the piece in person but judging from the photograph it would appear to be a copy after Raphael. True connoisseurship relates to the expert judgment of the trained eye and is so much more than mechanically matching brushstrokes and images.” - The Art Newspaper
"The House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday approved an interior and environment funding bill that bans the federal government from spending any taxpayer money on the National Museum of the American Latino, part of the Smithsonian Institution, which was approved by Congress in 2020." - The Hill
This was the second time that the vast, sand-yellow Transfiguration Cathedral, which sits in the heart of Odesa’s Unesco-listed historic centre, had been attacked: in the 1930s, it was torn down during Joseph Stalin’s atheism drive. On Sunday morning, the rebuilt version was hit during a Russian airstrike on the city. - The Guardian
A new piece was "built using a paste of mycelium and sawdust that’s pumped inside a fabric formwork. ... hardened into a moderately strong experimental pavilion that looks like a mix between a gazebo and a moldy piece of bread." - Fast Company
Which IKEA? Well, that depends on where the residency applicants live. In Burbank, one artist "pulled out a tub of IKEA’s MÅLA modeling dough and pressed it into the hole, then carefully removed the cast and stored it safely in a cardboard box like an archaeological specimen." - Hyperallergic
Artist Megan Cope, for instance, says her artwork at the Sydney Opera House, made by a team of volunteers, "can raise awareness of oyster reef destruction – but also point the way to a more sustainable ocean." - The Guardian (UK)
"The Bavarian state criminal police said that they had arrested four men suspected of carrying out the theft after a monthslong investigation ... turned up a trace of DNA on an unspecified item at the scene." Bad news though: Some of the coins have been melted down. - The New York Times
One gallerist said that "the tents were built over ground-level plywood rather than on above-ground risers, like one would see at other art fairs. Another gallerist ... alleged that the gallery walls weren’t flush with the floors either, calling the entire thing 'a recipe for disaster.'" - Hyperallergic
"Since February, the Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg, has returned 29 antiquities from White collection’s to Greece, 12 to Turkey, four to Iraq, two to China and one to Yemen. collecting has been described as naive or careless." - The Guardian (UK)
“We weren’t really trying to develop the world’s whitest paint. We wanted to help with climate change, and now it’s more of a crisis, and getting worse. We wanted to see if it was possible to help save energy while cooling down the Earth.” - Artnet
"On Thursday, the final tapestry in the set of 13 Gideon tapestries (at Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire) was unveiled on the wall of the long gallery, the culmination of a painstaking effort to clean and handstitch the huge pieces one at a time, at a cost of £1.7m." - The Guardian
