In the online iteration of 2020, no African American galleries were included. But "over the past year, Art Basel changed its admission requirements and made a concerted effort to invite previously marginalized galleries to apply." - The New York Times
Boris Johnson wanted a span crossing a 300-m trench filled with munitions, but his bridge game is off after "a government feasibility study by a team of 'world-renowned technical advisers' that bears do, after all, shit in the woods." - The Guardian (UK)
The ramifications of what happened at the Art Institute will play out for years. Depending who’s talking, it’s about diversity, gratitude or merely the future of museums. - MSN (Chicago Tribune)
Using bricks and wood scavenged from building sites, shards of stained glass, and stacked oil drums for pillars, former monk Justo Gallego spent six decades constructing a church of his own design in outer Madrid. He died last weekend, but a nonprofit will finish the building. - Yahoo! (AFP)
At least two dozen of the 35 surviving paintings of Johannes Vermeer will be on display in the spring of 2023 at Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum, whose director says he expects to borrow every Vermeer that isn't too fragile to travel. - The Guardian
The UNESCO World Heritage Site and pilgrimage center has been one of the battlegrounds in the civil war between Ethiopia's central government and rebels from Tigray province, whose forces captured the town in August. - Al Jazeera
NFTs (and with them cryptocurrency and all that comes with it) have upended the art market, bringing contemporary art and millennial meme culture crashing together. - ArtReview
"The Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports has announced that Italy will return a fragment of the Parthenon Frieze, which has been on loan as part of a cultural exchange." - Artnet
A retired Boston jeweler says that, shortly after the 1990 heist, an acquaintance brought in a gilded bronze eagle for him to appraise — a piece that he recognized as stolen from the museum. - MSN (The Boston Globe)
Array Collective has become the first Northern Irish artist(s) ever to receive the award. The winning work, titled The Druithaib's Ball, is a full-size replica of a shebeen (that's Irish for speakeasy) festooned with protest flags and slogans. - Artnet
Hani Rashid of Asymptote Architecture says his firm worked for years on a design, got necessary approvals — and stopped getting any communication from Moscow "just when we were ready to pour the concrete." After a year, he learned he'd been replaced with a local firm. - The Art Newspaper
The 23-foot-wide ornament now sits 453 feet above Barcelona, crowning the basilica's Virgin Mary Tower. Some of the neighbors are mightily irked by the star, and even more concerned about a proposed giant stairway to the church's entrance that could involve demolishing three city blocks. - The Guardian
These changes include replacing rarely-used confession booths in the nave with art installations, installing new lights at head height rather than near the high ceiling, benches instead of the old straw chairs, changing the placement of the baptistery and tabernacle, and reworking the side chapels. - Yahoo! (AFP)
The sculptures dating from the second or third century were smuggled into Switzerland in 2009 or 2010, before the outbreak of the Syrian war. Customs officers discovered them, along with one looted piece from Libya and five from Yemen, during a routine check at the freeport in 2013. - The Art Newspaper
