It's a history of Caravaggio's wild escapades and violent temper, a tale of armed knights bursting in to a cardinal's palace, and then a lot of centuries of who knows what, before they ended up in Avignon. - History Today
The pitch from ruangrupa: "The lumbung, the common rice store traditionally found in Indonesian villages, built and shared by everyone. They wanted Documenta to be a lumbung, treating artists as partners and creating resources that would live on beyond the show." - The New York Times
"A major lost painting by a follower of the Italian Renaissance painter Filippino Lippi hidden in plain sight in a London bungalow" of a 90+-year-old woman was discovered & sold to pay for her nursing home memory care. - Artnet
Last month a Saudi man took a wrong turn and drove his rented Maserati down the steps — then he tried to reverse the car back up, taking some chunks out of the marble. This week, an American couple tried to wheel their scooters down the steps and caused more damage. - Artnet
The previous director left less than one year into the role. But Mónica Ramírez-Montagut, who is currently the director of the Broad Art Museum at Michigan State, says she's eager to help the Parrish, in the Hamptons, connect more to its regional community. - The New York Times
Elizabeth Ann Macgregor, the Scot who took Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art from expensive also-ran to "trail-blazing cultural attraction," is finished being quiet about the amount of crap she dealt with every day. "It’s just a modus operandi for politics in this country." - The Guardian (UK)
Roughly 500 pieces of basketry, quillwork, regalia and other items from the Mi'kmaq people which have been at the Museum of the American Indian for decades are to be turned over, under a long-term loan agreement, to the new Mi'kmawey Debert Cultural Centre in Nova Scotia. - CBC
The report tracked “astonishing, nearly absurd” cases of political interference at some museums, the commissioners say, and outlines how some museums are poorly run. - The Art Newspaper
Nearly half of all art exhibitions showcased by U.S. museums between 2017 and 2021 were dedicated to less than five percent of a quarter of a million artists, ranging from those born at the start of the 20th century to those working today, according to a new survey. - ARTnews
At 41, Alexandra Suda will be the youngest director in the PMA's history, and she comes to Philadelphia after three years at the helm in Ottawa. She succeeds Timothy Rub, whose 12-year tenure in Philadelphia included both a $500 million renovation/expansion and considerable staff turmoil. - MSN (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
The Ministry of Culture has put Jean-Luc Martinez, who left Paris's flagship museum at the end of last year and was then appointed a cultural heritage ambassador, on temporary leave in the wake of his being formally charged with complicity in organized fraud and money laundering. - Artnet
Reversing Murano’s fate would be a monumental task, especially at this pivotal moment when soaring gas prices, caused by the war in Ukraine, have forced small, independently-owned factories to shut down their furnaces. - The New York Times
The National Gallery of Australia needs to urgently find more than $67 million to protect its $6.1 billion art collection with a backlog of repairs to its 40-year-old building left unfunded by the Morrison government. - Sydney Morning Herald
Amid war with Russia, the city’s challenge is to integrate tens of thousands of residents displaced from fighting in eastern Ukraine without sacrificing Lviv’s aesthetics or derailing its efforts to become a sustainable, livable European city. - The New York Times
The skilled artisans on the Venetian island have been struggling for many years against competition from mass-produced glass — and that was before the invasion of Ukraine sent fuel prices sky-high. Now some enterprising designers are working with Murano glassmakers to develop a market for new high-end work. - The New York Times
