"The Louvre in Paris, the world's most well-attended museum, will now limit the number of daily visitors to 30,000 'in order to facilitate a comfortable visit and ensure optimal working conditions for museum staff.' … Prior to the pandemic, the Louvre could welcome up to 45,000 visitors each day." - ARTnews
We honor many protesters, past and present, who broke the law to advance a good cause. Suffragettes targeted great art in their struggle to obtain votes for women, and, unlike today’s eco-activists, deliberately slashed paintings. Today, however, we regard them as heroic feminist pioneers. - Project Syndicate
Paris, Texas was founded in the 1840s, and quickly became a hub for business and culture in Northeast Texas. Unfortunately, in 1916, a massive fire destroyed much of the downtown, forcing the town's residents to rebuild. - KERA
"The Rodin Museum in Paris has scrapped its controversial €16 million (roughly $17 million) project to build an outpost in Santa Cruz de Tenerife … following scathing criticism from prominent Spanish politicians, educators, and art world figures." - ARTnews
"Archaeologists digging in the village of Hune in Denmark have discovered the remains of a vast Viking hall — what they're calling the 'largest Viking Age find of this nature' in more than a decade. … It likely dates to the reign of Harald I, who ruled Denmark from 958-986 C.E." - Artnet
The incident happened in a virtual art history class at Hamline University in Minnesota last fall: the professor gave his students advance warning before showing drawings of the Prophet from medieval Persian illuminated manuscripts to demonstrate that the prohibition of such images has not been universal within Islam. - ARTnews
The conversation has grown urgent after thieves last month made off with one artwork from the town of Hostomel, about 15 miles (25km) outside the capital. - The Guardian
"'We've said publicly, we're actively seeking a new Parthenon partnership with our friends in Greece and as we enter a new year constructive discussions are ongoing,' the British Museum said in a statement." - Reuters
One of the animating principles of modern civic life is to make public resources increasingly inaccessible in order to prevent public resources from being used in the wrong way, or used at all by the wrong people. - Mother Jones
"The lavatory on Charing Cross Road closed in the Seventies and later became a West End ticket kiosk before falling into disuse. There may be 1,500 square feet of exhibition space in the cubicles underground. The gallery is closed for renovation and plans to reopen this summer." - London Evening Standard
"An agreement would see a proportion of the marbles sent to Athens on rotation over several years. … In exchange, other objects would effectively be loaned to the museum in London, and Britain could also get plaster copies of the Parthenon sculptures." - Bloomberg
The saga of the Philip Guston exhibition, “Philip Guston Now,” that was postponed in late 2020 demonstrates how museums now suffer from an identity crisis, torn between the demands of an engaged activist audience and agitated internal discourse. - Artnet
"After a stabilization project, begun in 1990, reduced the quirky monument's dangerous lean by a full 15 inches, the tower has straightened itself out by an additional 1.6 inches since 2001. It still oscillates 0.02 inches over the course of each year, though, the latest results revealed." - Artnet
