Every January, Dresden's Frauenkirche closes for seven days, "and dozens of carpenters, painters, and other craftspeople and cleaners get to work. The crew repairs wobbly benches and worn wood, touches up paint, and scrubs, sands, and vacuums every nook and cranny of the highly ornamented space." - Atlas Obscura
"An ancient Buddhist temple dating from the 2nd or 3rd century BCE has been uncovered during an Italian-led archaeological excavation in the city of Barikot, in the Swat region of northern Pakistan." - ARTnews
Here are the most architecturally significant venues, including a new stadium by Populous and the world's first permanent structure for big air extreme snow jumping. - Dezeen
The sketch, titled The Virgin and Child with a Flower on a Grassy Bank and dating from around 1503, was purchased by a Massachusetts man at an estate sale in 2017. It has now been authenticated as the work of Albrecht Dürer. - ARTnews
"President Joe Biden has reversed a Trump-era order requiring that any visual art added to government buildings must portray American historical figures or ideals — and not be abstract." - Artnet
"The exhibition space, called Kunsthalle Berlin, opened January 28 at the Tempelhof Airport, a facility that was built by the Nazis in 1923 and ceased operations in 2008." So what's the issue? Follow the money … - Artnet
The design also includes more than 80,000 square feet of exhibition space, a theatre, a library, artist studios, space for a visual arts preschool and daycare, an Indigenous community space and a 40,000-square-foot courtyard. - The Globe and Mail (Canada)
“After two years scanning covid charts, we’re doing the same with natural gas prices as the curve rises, with the life and death of Murano hanging in the balance,” said Andrea Della Valentina of the Seguso Gianni factory. - Washington Post
"It is called 'The Arts of Islam: A Past for a Present', and each of its 18 participating venues contains 10 works intended to challenge the image of joyless Islamic bigotry internalised by many French people … (and) save the young from the prejudices of their parents." - Apollo
It's not easy to do this, since people come from all over the world to see the classics, but the Florence museum's dynamic director, Eike Schmidt, is working to "get the dust off" and exhibit new art in dialogue with the old. - The New York Times
Questions abound: "Have these institutions acquired any works by Venezuelan artists produced after 2000? How many Venezuelan artists have fled the country? How many Venezuelan curators and scholars live abroad and hold positions in museums in the United States or wherever they have been taken in?" - Hyperallergic
"The building of Stonehenge was not a single event but a series of interventions in the site, beginning in 3000BC with the first earthworks and spanning 1,500 years – or 90 truncated human generations." - The Observer (UK)
The involvement of wealthy donors sets up a balancing act for the DMA at a time when patrons’ money is under more scrutiny perhaps than ever before - Dallas Morning News
