One descendant: "Everything that are and were essentially derived from their relationship to their community, and that's from their intellectual achievements to their wealth, which was stolen wealth." - NPR
U.S. prosecutors want to return "a 10th-century Khmer sandstone statue said to have been plundered more than 20 years ago from a temple." - The New York Times
The exhibit, which used plaques on benches and Cold War rosebushes to convey info about Britain's nuclear past, was threatened with a lawsuit. - The Observer (UK)
The restoration work not only reveals the rogue addition of an upturned smile, but also a jarring strip of dirty sky added to make the canvas square rather than rectangular. - The Guardian
At a museum in Bologna, cameras and sensors of the ShareArt system record how many people view particular works, for how long, from how far away, and where exactly they concentrate their gaze. This data could help optimize gallery layout and even the scheduling of exhibits. - Bloomberg CityLab
"The discovery was made in the area of Tell al-Duhaila, which is home to more than 1,200 archaeological sites, including the Great Ziggurat of Ur site from the Sumerian era." - Al-Monitor
The Madrid museum decided back in 2008 that The Colossus was painted by an apprentice rather than the master himself. Now curators are hedging their bets, describing the work as "attributed to Goya" rather than reauthenticating it outright. - Artnet
The contemporary art world is, more often than not, represented as a ridiculous shell game in which empty provocation is propped up by canny marketing and rampant financial speculation. - ARTnews
"EdiliziAcrobatica's team has rock-climbed up and abseiled down some of Italy's most significant historic monuments. … Suspended from ropes, the acrobatic technicians can perform a whole range of tasks, from the waterproofing of roofing to welding." - Apollo
The website has launched "Classic Nudes", a curated selection of NSFW art at the Louvre, the Met, the Prado, etc. View the works online or in person with your phone; adult actor Asa Akira is your audio guide. The promo video features none other than Jeff Koons's ex, Cicciolina. (second item) - Artlyst
“I was struck and moved by the extraordinarily personal, cogent arguments that each officer made for their selection, which was so different from the intellectual and filtered approach that a trained curator would take.” - The Art Newspaper
AI software isn't designing the sculptures in the Italian quarry town (yet), but it is controlling precision machines that do the strenuous grinding and chiseling of rock that used to wear out human sculptors' bodies. - The New York Times
The Pulitzer-winning art critic said tweeted, "I think it's fishy to always be barking to your readers to subscribe. … I like being in my huge department store @Nymag where people find me who have no idea who I am … or even thought about art before." - Twitter
Patricia Marroquin Norby (Purépecha) lives to "show you how a 19th-century ceramic, textile, carving or painting is made and how it is connected to the contemporary works." - The New York Times
Basically: "Kahlo, born to an affluent German father and mestiza mother (Spanish and Purépecha), adopted the popular fetishization and sanitization of the Tehuana favored by the cosmopolitan bourgeois, intellectual, and artistic circles of Mexico City." - Hyperallergic
