“They’re like, ‘Do you have a place where you can have a confidential conversation?’ So the next day I had a meeting, I was in my backyard, it was confidential. And they said ‘We’re sorry, we kind of made this ruse, but you’re the artist that we are recommending.’” - OPB
“Van Gogh would regularly walk for an hour or more, through the agricultural land that supplied the Saturday market to the Romanesque abbey Montmajour, not to sketch the vast and picturesque ruins, as many artists would have done, but to capture the landscape around.” - The Observer (UK)
Then Hurricane Helene hit - and hit hard. In Asheville’s long-gestated River Arts District, the president of the District’s art group describes “the current scene as ‘near apocalyptic,’ adding that ‘two-thirds of the district has been either washed away or is in rubble.’” - The New York Times
Somehow, billionaire mansions survive - the Biltmore House, hotels, and even gardens were little damaged by Hurricane Helene - but Biltmore Village? Yikes. - NPR
At least, that’s what the authenticators say about a painting bought for £2,000. “The artwork had been exhibited in Canada five times between 1912 and 1913, but its whereabouts had since been unknown.” - BBC
"Commissioned by the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague, … the independent study used eye-tracking technology and MRI scans to record the brain activity of volunteers looking at genuine artworks and reproductions. The 20 volunteers had a response that was 10 times stronger when looking at the former." - The Guardian
In 2016, when Adams was Brooklyn borough president, two of his top aides reportedly pushed the museum to mount a show about Sun Yat-Sen, China's first president after the last emperor fell. Adams's requested lead time was one month. - The Art Newspaper
"Since March, the Tibetan-led campaign Our Ancestors Say No has been protesting the museum and collecting online petition signatures demanding the return of what they allege are stolen sacred cultural artifacts." - Hyperallergic
The decision was likely because they didn't actually vandalize any art: the two Just Stop Oil activists simply glued their hands to the frame of J.M.W. Turner's 1809 painting Tomson’s Aeolian Harp at the Manchester Art Gallery. - Artnet
That project meant finding trees comparable to the huge oaks used to make the original eight centuries ago, finding or reproducing the medieval tools and techniques used by the original builders (and locating workers who knew how to use them), and getting the complicated structure finished within the five-year timeline. - GQ
A junk dealer found the painting when cleaning out a deceased homeowner's basement on the island of Capri. The dealer took it home and hung it (his wife hated it); years later, his son had experts look at it, and they believe it's a portrait of Picasso's erstwhile lover Dora Maar. - The Guardian
Zoe Ryan will replace Hammer director Ann Philbin, who after transforming the museum over 25 years, is scheduled to depart in November. - Los Angeles Times
“The new owners have sold some one-of-a-kind furnishings that Wright designed for the building. And the building itself is up sale, listed on a commercial real estate auction website next to hollowed out strip malls and an empty Burger King.” - The New York Times
“How did a painting that was once coveted by museum directors and collectors alike simply disappear? And how can a work of art suddenly be deemed inauthentic, after more than a century of authenticity?” - Hyperallergic
