“It’s something way beyond a conventional studio, where it’s just an artist working on paintings. They’re walking through each other’s studios, they’re promoting each other.” - The New York Times
While digging ditches in anticipation of a potential Russian attack, Ukrainian military men discovered several amphorae (bottle-necked ceramic containers) estimated to be up to 2,500 years old. - ARTnews
Funded by the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, the museum and community center called Bët-bi (Wolof for "the eye"), to open in 2025 in the country's Senegambia region, will (among other activities) serve as a way station for returned African artworks whose destination countries aren't ready to preserve them. - ARTnews
Look, this wouldn't really be a news story, but the energy trader who bought it said, "I’m walking away with the treasure while everybody is fighting over a Warhol or a Monet." The painting, by Ernie Barnes, also appeared as the cover of a Marvin Gaye single. - Los Angeles Times
"This protest was beautiful; we used our own craft and creative responsibility as artists to advocate for social change. From stenciled shirts to embroidered banners, from hand-printed posters to cardboard sculptures — our strike was a creative act." - Hyperallergic
Sonia Boyce "greets the trophy with a mix of gratitude and circumspection. 'It seems almost ridiculous that it takes into the 21st century for a Black British female artist to be invited to do Venice.'" - The New York Times
And glimpses of it in Imelda Marcos' apartment after Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s (shocking, for those who remember the 1980s) presidential win "has added to fears the family will use its now-increased power to brazenly further stifle efforts to recover ill-gotten wealth." - The Guardian (UK)
Or you could call it a frieze. Hockney was inspired, he says, by the Bayeux Tapestry as well as by the seasons in Normandy, where he now lives. - Artnet
So far, of 56 US institutions surveyed, 16 museums are in the process of returning Benin Court artworks, and five more would do so if requested. Added to similar efforts in other countries, there are now more repatriation requests than Nigerian officials can promptly process. - MSN (The Washington Post)
The figure of Christ the Redeemer that reigns over Rio de Janeiro is 98 feet tall (not including the pedestal or the mountain it sits atop). This new statue, Christ the Protector, is in Encantado, Rio Grande do Sul, a small city closer to Montevideo than to São Paulo. - Artnet
The Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery, like most of its counterparts in Ukraine, hid its collection to protect it from destruction or looting by invading Russian forces. Now some of its artworks are going back on display in the museum's 18 branches across Lviv province. - The New York Times
An elderly American woman, who may have been feeling ill or may have tripped on the slightly raised platform, landed on Guido Reni's St. Francis receiving the stigmata (1612) at Rome's Galleria Borghese. The damage? A 1½-inch "slight superficial tear." - Artnet
Indeed, the work — full title Shot Sage Blue Marilyn and dating from 1964 — is also the highest-priced 20th-century artwork and the second-most expensive artwork of any kind ever sold, trailing only Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi ($450 million). - ARTnews
