A Virginia museum has loaned the statue to Europe but won't loan it to a gallery in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, so that gallery has started to sell NFTs of images of the statue. The museum is not pleased. - The Guardian (UK)
In a "totally Kafkaesque" situation, one artist's show ran without the public ever being able to see it. "All facilities overseen by the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) remain closed, with no timeline for reopening or even a roadmap for how to get there." - The Art Newspaper
"Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, the IRS equivalent in the United Kingdom, announced earlier this week that it had seized three NFTs and about $6,800 worth of crypto from three individuals who are currently embroiled in a $1.9 million tax fraud case." (Hm. How would one seize an NFT?) - ARTnews
"Pursuing a more 'panoramic approach' to the painter’s oeuvre, the Madrid institution has placed Las Majas in a new gallery alongside two little-seen sketches of Saint Bernardino of Siena preaching to an Aragonese king, as well as a reclining Venus by Titan." - ARTnews
"The collection of 239 objects, encompassing Pueblo and Navajo pottery, textiles, and jewelry, is not well known, despite the fact that Barnes installed the textiles largely on the second floor of his (original) Merion gallery, where they eventually kept watch over the Matisse mural, The Dance." - MSN (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
Rex Whistler's wall painting includes depictions of black slaves on a leash and caricatures of Chinese figures. The room will no longer be used as a restaurant, as it had been for decades. Instead, Tate said the new installation would "be exhibited alongside and in dialogue with the mural, reframing the way the space is experienced". - BBC
Unfortunately, much of the language that surrounds their retroactive inclusion — through museum retrospectives, new biographies, and increasing market interest — makes it seem as if their systematic erasure has been a fluke of history, rather than an intentional sidelining. - Hyperallergic
Since 2001, there have been at least ten major archeological projects at or around Stonehenge, along with many smaller ones; many have involved techniques unavailable to previous researchers, such as high-precision radiocarbon dating, ground-penetrating radar, and isotope analysis. - The New Yorker
For 84 years the museum, built with private funds, paid $1 annual rent for land in a city park. But a new law calls for the museum to pay part of fair market rental value and to accept 60 days' notice for lease termination. The museum is resisting. - Idaho Statesman
After an outcry from those who thought the Courtauld was mocking mental illness and psychosis for fun and profit, the museum removed the erasers and the soap bar "for the tortured artist who enjoys fluffy bubbles" from its inventory. (The emotional first-aid kit remains in stock.) - Artnet
But there’s a hitch: The valuable paintings, including a Caravaggio said to be worth millions, cannot physically be moved from their location due to national heritage laws. - Artnet
The six-inch statuette of an oddly-shaped nude woman dates from about 600 years after the battle at the site, near the Baltic coast of Germany. It might have been a religious object, a good-luck talisman, or a weight for a balance scale (if not all three). - The New York Times
Earlier this month, there were reports that Mastaba, a 500-foot-tall quasi-pyramid made of 410,000 brightly colored steel barrels and planned for a desert site 100 miles south of Abu Dhabi city, had been given the go-ahead by UAE authorities. Those reports, it turns out, were premature. - Dezeen
Mental illness, hilarious: "Apart from the eraser ear, visitors can buy a £5 bar of soap, marketed as ideal for 'the tortured artist who enjoys fluffy bubbles.' An 'emotional first aid kit'" is £16 - but are depression, self-harm, and suicide really so funny?. - The Guardian (UK)
How do we know the pots weren't used for something like olive oil instead of, well, feces? Ah, science: "Intestinal parasitic worms trapped in layers of mineralization from years of use as a chamber pot." - Hyperallergic
