The region of Svaneti, a pair of protected valleys high in the Caucasus Mountains, was where the rest of the country sent its finest work when the armies of Byzantium or Persia or the Ottomans or Russia came a-conquering. Here's a look at where those treasures are kept today. - Apollo
"The tombs, which are believed to have housed senior officials from the Old Kingdom and First Intermediate period, date back to as long ago as 2700 BC. ... Archaeologists found not only well-preserved paintings, but also small statues and pottery as well as stone and wooden coffins." - Deutsche Welle
As bad as things often got after the wars started in 2003, art and artists in Iraq's capital never went completely dormant. Now galleries are starting to open and some artists who fled abroad are returning home. - Artnet
A careful examination of the 13 Pro noted visual glitches caused by the device’s intelligent photography, including the erasure of bridge cables in a landscape shot. “Its complex, interwoven set of ‘smart’ software components don’t fit together quite right,” the report stated. - The New Yorker
Among the UNESCO World Heritage monuments in immediate danger of destruction is the irreplaceable 11th-century cathedral of St. Sophia in Kyiv. - The Conversation
Ingrid Pollard, a British photographer known for her portraits and landscapes, says, "Everything about is fabricated for industrial rural use. The barbed wire, the telegraph pole, the tarmac. Stereotypes about Black people are constructed in exactly the same way." - The Observer (UK)
Sure, some people are making midlife career changes, but for others, it's social media - and the coronavirus, as with a young potter whose "unexpected lockdown hobby turned into a small business." - The Guardian (UK)
Our aesthetics just can't keep up. "The visual monotony of the crisis has put art departments at news organizations in a pinch. How do you keep covering one of the most important stories of our time when the story keeps revolving around the same virus?" - Slate
"Nearly ten years after the beloved cultural organization began, developing into one of the country’s leading venues for Black art, its two directors have departed, and the doors of its Arlington Heights location have shuttered." - The New York Times
The Met's eighteenth-century “decorative arts” usually languish in the museum’s emptiest galleries. Yet when Disney animated them into characters like the candlestick Lumiére in Beauty and the Beast or into scenes in Cinderella (1950)... - ArtForum
Walking around a museum can feel a little off-putting when you know that workers aren’t being paid a fair wage — and, in the case of the Penn Museum, are even subject to union busting. - Hyperallergic
The exhibition from the Morozov Collection — estimated to be worth $2 billion, with pieces by (among others) Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet, and some of Russia's greatest artists — at the Fondation Louis Vuitton may be the most popular art show in French history. And it's now in a difficult position. - Slate
The Russian robber barons' colossal fortunes have had an outsize effect not only on the commercial market, but on museums and not-for-profit galleries and exhibitions as well. - The Guardian
Despite it donating £5.8m to the Ukrainian Red Cross Society from a recent auction in London, and its CEO condemning the Russian invasion, those calling for the company to be shunned argue that only a boycott will force its Russian business figures to put pressure on the Kremlin. - The Guardian
