Stocks of unpainted, snow-white china became a tantalising canvas for avant-garde artists keen to express their utopian ideologies and rouse enthusiasm for the new socialist era, giving this delicate, bourgeois material an unexpected, almost contradictory, second life. - BBC
Much as AI, or machine learning, has been woven into the rest of our daily lives, it's now taking a shot at resurrecting precious cultural artefacts once lost to the passage of time. - BBC
"A number of marble tiles on the floor of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, which was turned back into a mosque in 2020 after serving as a historical museum for decades, have reportedly been cracked by heavy machinery used to clean the building last week." - Artnet
"The collection of metal plaques and sculptures that decorated the royal palace of the Kingdom of Benin ... that have found their way into 20 museums across Germany were mostly taken by British forces when they conquered, burned, and looted the city of Benin in 1897." - Deutsche Welle
"Aaron De Groft ... was removed from his post Tuesday night, just days after the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided the museum and seized 25 works that had been attributed to Jean-Michel Basquiat but whose authenticity has been called into question." - The New York Times
"During his tenure, Weiss steered the Met through a major restructuring of its finances, a shakeup of its leadership, and economic and moral crises ignited by the coronavirus pandemic and the Black Lives Matters movement." - ARTnews
In a brazen raid on the Tefaf art fair, one of the men was filmed smashing cases with a sledgehammer while accomplices kept visitors away. One visitor picked up a large vase in an apparent attempt to halt the robbers before quickly putting it back. - BBC
"Five permanent artworks are planned for Wadi AlFann" — a "valley of the arts," part of the $15 billion AlUla complex which will be unveiled in 2024 — "(by) James Turrell, Agnes Denes, Michael Heizer, as well as Saudi artists Manal AlDowayan and Ahmed Mater." - Artnet
"New research from the University of Pennsylvania found reductions in anxiety and depression and increases in cognitive function and empathy, among a number of other promising outcomes." - Hyperallergic
The long-established event, regarded as the world’s pre-eminent fair for art, objects and furniture ranging back through the centuries, was canceled in 2021 and postponed this year by three months to an unfamiliar summer slot. - The New York Times
Called Maldives Floating City, the development will contain 5,000 low-rise floating homes floating within a 200-hectare lagoon in the Indian Ocean. As sea levels rise, so too will the city, which will be built upon a series of hexagonal-shaped floating structures. - Dezeen
You don’t know it’s art by looking at it. You know it’s art because galleries want to show it, dealers want to sell it, collectors want to buy it, museums want to exhibit it, and critics can explain it. When the parts are in synch, you have a market. - The New Yorker
Or, at the very least, someone should have clocked the antisemitic imagery in one artist's piece. Then there's the question of Palestinian artists and Germany's pro-Israel stance. "In this combustible climate, some vigilance might have been expected. But from whom?" - The New York Times
It's unfortunate (in the extreme) that writers and artists let their relationship overshadow her own work, which not only documents the Surrealists but also captured the economic crisis of the Great Depression in the UK and Spain. - The Guardian (UK)
Victor Gruen "set his sights on bringing a dose of Viennese urbanity to what he saw as the car-dominated 'avenues of horror' of American commercial strips. He imagined Southdale as the centre of a new high-density, mixed-use district." Developers had other plans. - The Guardian (UK)
