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
The 13½-by-22-foot, 1,225-pound painting is back in place at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, which is about to reopen after a decade-long renovation. Moving the 417-year-old masterpiece was quite an operation. - AP
At least seven major institutions in Shanghai's West Bund and Pudong districts shut their doors on March 10, just before local schools were closed. Lockdowns have also closed museums in Shenzhen, across the river from Hong Kong; other southern Chinese cities remain open for now. - ARTnews
"Given the rarity of violence within museums, most are protected by security guards who are typically unarmed and capable of detecting and responding to events — but they are not equipped to do more than report an intruder with a weapon." - The New York Times
The nearly 200-foot-tall NGV Contemporary — which, at 323,000 square feet (140,000 of display space), will be Australia's largest art museum when it opens in 2028 — will feature a 130-foot spherical atrium surrounded by a Frank Lloyd Wright/Guggenheim-style spiral walkway. - The Age (Melbourne)
The free-admission space, founded in a minority neighborhood in 2012 by a prominent Black artist family, had reopened only a month ago following its pandemic closure. One of the departing co-directors took the reins in 2020, the other only late last year; neither are founding-family members. - ARTnews
"Several tombs and a leaden sarcophagus likely dating from the 14th century have been uncovered by archaeologists at Paris's Notre-Dame cathedral following its devastating 2019 fire. … Elements of painted sculptures were (also) found just beneath the current floor level of the cathedral." - France 24
