The late Brazilian modernist designed this public pavilion/art gallery at the Château La Coste winery near Aix-en-Provence in 2010, when he was 102. (He died two years later.) While the building has the signature Niemeyer characteristics (it's white and curvy), it's somewhat subdued by his standards. - Dezeen
A study conducted by Bloomberg Philanthropies examined 17 sites over two years, before and after they were painted with “asphalt art” (art on surfaces such as roads, sidewalks, and underpasses). - Hyperallergic
Mural Arts Philadelphia started as an anti-graffiti program, drafting the taggers to paint something building owners and community members would be happy, not angry, to have. Now the 4,000+ murals are a symbol of the city, and hundreds of locations are on Mural Arts' waiting list. - MSN (National Geographic)
Set among the nation-state pavilions that have stood in the Giardini for decades, it is a powerful statement in the face of the ongoing invasion by the Russian army. - Artnet
There has always been salt in the sand and groundwater of central Iraq, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. But salinity levels are rising and sandstorms are becoming more frequent, eating away at the mud bricks of which the region's historic monuments are made. - The Guardian
"119 local women and 670 men are being trained in traditional stone masonry techniques using 'Mosul marble' — a kind of gypsum alabaster native to the area — as part of a larger effort by UNESCO to encourage community participation in heritage conservation." - The Art Newspaper
For artists and curators from countries that have been hit hardest by Covid-19 or those that have struggled most to foot the bill—presentations require around $100,000 to $300,000, according to several commissioners we spoke to—it’s been a race against both time and resources. - Artnet
The redesign, led by the firm’s founder, Annabelle Selldorf, has gracefully unified a jumble of buildings from various eras, added 30,000 square feet of gallery space and reoriented the entire structure to the stunning feature it had long turned its back on: the Pacific Ocean. - Los Angeles Times
Andrés Rubio, travel editor at El País, has just published a book arguing that Spain's natural beauty and historic cities and towns have been blighted by hasty, often chaotic real estate development with architecture that's often hulking, dull and even downright repugnant. - The Guardian
The artwork spent 150 years at a school in the Blue Mountains that's now owned by the National Trust of Australia, which sent the painting for conservation. Once the varnish was removed, conservators discovered the signature of Gerrit Willemszoon Heda (1624-1649), and the painting is worth several million dollars. - Artnet
This week sees the release of a new film, Who Can He Be?, in which David Rolfe argues that, far from the shroud being a definite dud, new discoveries in the past few years have again opened the question of its authenticity. - The Guardian
An Italian court says the Piero della Francesca work must be returned to the hilltop church where it was painted in 1460. The mayor of the town says no way in hell is it going to live among 3,000 graves. - The Guardian (UK)
Devon Henry "has emerged as the go-to statue remover not only for , but for all of Virginia and other parts of the South." And there's a high price to pay, on a personal level. - The New York Times
Barry Joule "said he is so frustrated by the Tate’s failure to exhibit an earlier donation of the artist’s work that he has cancelled plans to donate hundreds more items to the gallery." - The Observer (UK)
