Heavy monsoon rains this summer have swollen the Yamuna River in Agra right up to the Taj's walls. There might be slight damage to the mausoleum's white marble, but the moisture is strengthening the building's wooden foundation and support rafters, which had been weakened by a prolonged drought. - Bloomberg CityLab
"Even as Cecilie Hollberg highlights her achievements at Italy's second-most-visited museum" — it's the home of Michelangelo's David — "since arriving in 2015, rumors circulate that Italy's far-right-led government intends to revoke the museum's independence once more," exactly as happened to Hollberg and the Galleria in 2019. - AP
"A Swiss teenager is the latest offender to start carving her name into the ancient amphitheatre. The 17-year-old was caught in the act, with a local tour guide managing to video her scratching the letter N into the wall of the famous landmark." - The Independent (UK)
What feels different about ecocritical art is that the very topic it engages with proposes widespread ruin and demands that action be immediately taken to counteract such an apocalypse. - Art Review
The antiquities were lent for a 2019 Hanukkah event at the White House but, due to a "bureaucratic difficulty," were never displayed. They were supposed to be returned to Israel within weeks but never were, partly due to the pandemic, and have now been located at Trump's Florida residence. - The Forward (Haaretz)
The demolition of the 300-year-old minaret of a mosque in southern Iraq last week to make way for a road extension has drawn outrage from locals and heritage authorities. - The Art Newspaper
"The furry pooch, named A.I.C.C.A. (or Artificially Intelligent Critical Canine) has been trained on a corpus of visual art and art writing. … Using its black-lens eye, it assesses physical artworks, before working with OpenAI's GPT model to generate a concise piece of art criticism" which is ejected you-know-where. - Artnet
"The transport secretary has granted a development consent order for a scheme to widen roads and dig a two-mile tunnel near the ancient site. The project, which was initially costed at £1.7bn, is designed to speed up journey times on the A303, a major link to south-west England." - The Guardian
Investigators from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office have carted away 71 looted artifacts from Shelby White’s home in the past two years, though they have not suggested that she or her husband knowingly bought stolen antiquities. In fact, investigators would later thank White, 84, for her cooperation. - The New York Times
We're not talking about the Bund or other Nazi sympathizers in the U.S. - of course they liked it. But its use "was widespread and fashionable, first infused with a sense of vaguely whimsical 'exoticism,' and then perfect for the developing Art Deco aesthetic." - Slate
Luella Bartley, famous British designer whose oldest, artist child died two years ago at age 18: "I wouldn’t say that I have acceptance, but there is an understanding. ... It’s strange that you can carry on. What’s the motivation for that? I’ve struggled with that." - The Observer (UK)
Varda was a photographer first, and for her first film, La Pointe Courte, "she really worked on the photos – it was more than reportage, it was about preparing the film. When she came on set, she had no problem knowing where to put the camera." - The Guardian (UK)
"Sandip K. Luis, the former curatorial research and publications manager at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) in Noida, was formally terminated from his post on July 5 due to a Facebook post criticizing an art exhibition celebrating Modi’s 'propagandist' radio show." - Hyperallergic
“There was this idea that, OK, industry and maybe some people left this city, so now it’s our playground." (the city’s population declined from about two million in the 1960s to about 1.5 million in 2021). “If you leave a building abandoned, it’s going to get filled with art.” - The New York Times
Both the Armory Show, which is led by executive director Nicole Berry, and Expo Chicago, led by founder and president Tony Karman, will operate as separate divisions under Frieze with their existing teams but will share business services. - ARTnews
