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Boston’s Newest Public Art Is Meant To Honor The Kings

The sculpture, called "The Embrace," is also meant to give Boston a new shine. "People come to Boston to get their American story reified. And if Boston can tell a different story about America, then America can start telling a different story about itself." - Boston Globe

A Friend Hid This Munch Masterpiece In A Barn To Keep It From Nazis

"Dance on the Beach was part of a masterpiece of 12 major panels, which Max Reinhardt, the theatre director, commissioned in 1906 for his avant-garde theatre in Berlin." Years later, the Nazis declared Munch a "degenerate." - The Observer (UK)

Turning Paris’s Trash Into Visual Poetry

Itinerant artist and poet Ser Serpas says that "Parisian trash is sturdy." The 27-year-old, "like, many of her peers, she favors objects that bear the marks of use, as if, having inherited a sorely used world, she’s making stanzas from its leftovers." - The New York Times

The Norwegians Who Find Bronze Age Carvings In The Snow And Dark

"Since making petroglyph hunting their collective hobby, in 2016, the three enthusiasts have transformed knowledge about prehistoric art in Norway, more than doubling the number of carvings known in their home region." - The New York Times

Hugo Ball Prize Halted As Organizers Address The Artist’s Antisemitism

The prize, named for the influential German Dadaist, was awarded - but at the request of artist winner Hito Steyerl, and agreement of writing winner Olivia Wenzel, "the 2023 award will be replaced by an open discussion about historical and current antisemitism and racism." - Hyperallergic

Nazi Loot Claim On Van Gogh Worth $250 Million

In 1987 the work was auctioned for £25m, but the heirs of the German Jewish banker Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, who owned it until the 1930s, now value it at a staggering $250m. - The Art Newspaper

Brasilia’s Modernist Architecture May Have Helped Stymie The Bolsonarista Rioters

"(The Brazilian capital's) proportions can render political action strangely inert. … It is an otherworldly landscape of red earth, open grass and enormous roadways ... best viewed from the air. So vast are its voids that the sheer scale of the space may have helped temper the energies of the crowds." - Bloomberg CityLab

The Bolsonarista Rioters Ruined A Lot More Artwork Than We’d Realized

"(Damages) go far beyond the shattered glass on the exteriors of the presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court, all architectural icons. Modernist furniture was burned, portraits defaced, sculptures decapitated and ceramics smashed. Carpets were found soaked with water from the buildings' sprinkler systems, as well as with urine." - AP

Leading Muslim Advocacy Group Says University Was Wrong To Fire Professor Who Showed Medieval Persian Images Of Muhammad

"The Muslim Public Affairs Council has published a statement urging reinstatement of an art history professor who was fired from Hamline University in Minnesota after showing her class Medieval paintings depicting the Prophet Muhammad." Indeed, MPAC said she should be thanked for "educating students … in a critically empathetic manner." - Artnet

There Will Be No Deal To “Loan” The Parthenon Marbles Back To Greece, Says Prime Minister

Scuttling reports from last week of secret talks over a deal, premier Kyriakos Mitsotakis restated his nation's longstanding position that the ancient sculptures, having been stolen by Lord Elgin in the 19th century, are not Britain's to return and belong to Greece by right. - Reuters

A Tower In Vancouver That Literally Twists Itself To Conform To Zoning Rules

The Vancouver House is a 490-foot high-rise teetering on a narrow base, twisting and expanding as it rises. The torquing tower serves as a new gateway to the city, appearing like a half-formed archway that frames the skyline and British Columbia’s North Shore Mountains beyond. - Bloomberg

Sydney Just Isn’t A Museum-Oriented City. Can The New Sydney Modern Change That?

"Museum-building in a real estate-obsessed city that Mark Twain called 'superbly beautiful' — in the sunny heart of a proud 'sporting nation' — often requires overcoming a barrage of negativity. The Sydney Opera House was loathed before it was loved, and the Modern has traveled a rough road already." - The New York Times

The Three Amigos Of Ancient Norse Rock Art

"The three enthusiasts have transformed knowledge about prehistoric art in Norway, more than doubling the number of carvings known in their home region. And … their findings have also lent serious weight to theories about the mysterious petroglyphs' meaning." - The New York Times

Columbia University’s New $600M Business School Wrestles With Capitalism

The design of the complex just blocks north of Columbia’s main Morningside Heights campus coincided with business schools around the country coming to terms with a rising chorus of criticism that companies are too predatory, exploitative and monopolistic, and that business education had to change. - The New York Times

Pro-Bolsonaro Rioters Damage Major Modernist Artworks In Brasilia

Vandals in the crowd seriously damaged several paintings and sculptures and destroyed a couple of pieces entirely — this on top of the damage they caused to the landmark Oscar Niemeyer buildings themselves. - Artnet

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