"Every element of the natural world tremored with significance in Vincent van Gogh's world. Sunflowers were his symbol of joy and devotion. Stars were glimmers of heaven. Why did cypress trees become his symbol of fortitude?" - BBC
Mr. Blum said ZHAI had a computer tool that, in 27 hours, could come up with 100,000 designs for a building’s interior; an architect would have to produce 40 drawings a day for a decade to deliver that many options. - The New York Times
In February 1969, amid one of Boston's worst-ever snowstorms, a crate containing Picasso's Portrait of a Woman and a Musketeer went missing from Logan Airport; five weeks later, the painting was dropped off at the Museum of Fine Arts. Here's what happened in the interim. - The New York Times
"Two activists on Wednesday smeared red paint and then glued their hands to the protective glass on The Artist's Garden at Giverny, a painting by … Claude Monet on display in an exhibition at Stockholm's National Museum." - CNN
The official opening of the museum this month will come just weeks after the re-election of a president under whose leadership the media has been censored, art and music have been suppressed throughout the country, and artists have been jailed. Several artists live in exile. - The New York Times
Tickets to the exhibition sold out in a matter of days, reselling for extortionate amounts on the black market. Exhibitions of this magnetism are often deleterious to the human and material infrastructure of a museum; they can even be financial calamities. Yet we might say that this blockbuster developed as a perfect storm. - artforum
"The Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative and the Met Museum have teamed up with the Army to help soldiers understand the role that art plays in the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine … (and) how to document evidence of crimes." - The New York Times
"A Miami federal judge ruled this week in favor of the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, who, for a few weeks in 2019, was the talk of the art world after his work Comedian, a banana duct-taped to a wall, sold at Art Basel Miami Beach for $120,000." - ARTnews
After facing years of heavy criticism nationally and internationally, the museum worked with a group of experts from the African diaspora in Belgium to rethink the controversial statues on display. - BBC
The museum retains its Neoclassical facade from 1905, courtesy Edward Broadhead Green, and its modernist addition from the '60s, courtesy Gordon Bunshaft. The 1905 building has been given new life. Its original staircase out front, removed during the Bunshaft project, is now back - ”a gesture that renews the building's majesty” - and the galleries have been given fresh...
The 300 items were assembled for a 2013 exhibition by the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam; the show was at a German museum when Russia invaded and illegally annexed Crimea in 2014. Dutch authorities were unsure where to return the pieces and stored them until courts decided the case. - ARTnews
"'The wood was placed in our wood bin weeks ago when it was taken down. It has been processed with other wood since then,' (said a) spokesperson. … The piece, entitled Fencelines – A Collective Monument to Resilience, comprised hundreds of wooden slats that community members in Richmond had painted." - ARTnews
Some Brits might bristle, but Paris's building height restriction lessons are real. "Skyscrapers are like air travel: they used to be as glamorous as the jet set, but now they’re in a Ryanair phase – generic, dull and predictable, a default option for unimaginative property companies." - The Observer (UK)
For good reason. "The museum traces its origins back to when King Leopold II set up the International Exposition of 1897. As part of that, 267 Congolese men, women and children were taken by force to Belgium and exhibited to the public ... on the site where the museum stands." - BBC
