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Cambodia Asserts That The Met Has Dozens Of Looted Antiquities

This isn't idle speculation. "Cambodian officials said they have developed a spreadsheet of 45 'highly significant' items at the Met that the evidence suggests were stolen before being donated or sold to the museum." - The New York Times

Did Judy Chicago Troll A Crowd At The De Young Museum?

No, but yikes. "When that initial plume dispersed a bit the first things I could see were dozens of people running in the opposite direction, masked or scrambling to find their masks, and throwing their kids over their shoulders to escape." - Hyperallergic

A Different Kind Of Gold Torso

These aren't from ancient Greece or Rome. Instead, they're modern casts artist Ellen Downes makes to help women heal from trauma. - BBC

Seriously? Send Your Art To Space?

Uplift promotes ‘Constellation Vault’: ‘a platform for commercial promotion and exhibition in low Earth orbit’. ‘The Constellation Vault will offer patrons the exclusive opportunity to acquire highly coveted items for private sale and auction in space, delivered upon return to Earth.’ Apollo

Unknown Arshile Gorky Painting Discovered Behind Later Artwork On Paper

The newly discovered work, called Untitled (Virginia Summer) and dated ca. 1946-47, was found when the Arshile Gorky Foundation sent out The Limit (1947) for routine conservation. - Artnet

Robot Artists Detained By Egyptian Authorities Over Security Concerns

A robot artist made it to an exhibit at Egypt’s pyramids after its British maker said airport security held his creation for 10 days on suspicion it could be part of an espionage plot. - Washington Post

Chicago Art Institute Fired Its Docents. But The Story Isn’t So Simple

James Rondeau, the Institute’s director, said that the docents program had long been viewed as logistically unsustainable, and that the Institute had stopped adding new volunteers 12 years ago. - The New York Times

Tribute Or Marketing Stunt (Or Both)? Secretive Seattle Street Artist Stalks Manhattan Recreating “Shadowman”

Richard Hambleton painted his dark silhouette figures around the Lower East Side in the 1980s, becoming "the godfather of street art." The artist known as Nullbureau has lately been painting fresh copies of Hambleton's Shadowmen around New York, and some Hambleton devotees are outraged. - The New York Times

Sotheby’s Launches An NFT Marketplace

The layout of the Metaverse website, similar in format to NFT-specific platforms such as OpenSea and Nifty Gateway, is designed to display the NFTs so that viewers can easily see the transaction history of any piece. - ARTnews

First There Was Wall Street’s “Charging Bull”. Then Came “Fearless Girl”. Now There’s A Bronze Gorilla.

Why? Because capitalism has gone bananas. So now there are 10,000 bananas (real ones) piled around Charging Bull, with a seven-foot statue of the late Harambe the gorilla a few feet away. As with Fearless Girl, this is a marketing stunt. - Artnet

Oslo’s Towering New Edvard Munch Museum

"Rebranded simply as MUNCH, it will open on 22 October following a decade of development drama, political U-turns and staggering logistical challenges. The result is one of the largest single-artist museums in the world." - The Art Newspaper

Why It’s Good That UCLA Is Selling Its Picasso But Bad That The Met Is Selling Historic Photographs

What it all comes down to, writes Christopher Knight, is what the money from the sale will be used for. - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)

Vienna’s Museums Now Have An Onlyfans Site To Promote The Nudes In Their Collections

Why? Because Facebook, Instagram and TikTok keep taking down their nude artworks — Peter Paul Rubens, Egon Schiele, even the Venus of Willendorf — for violating obscenity rules. - ARTnews

The Virtual Gallery Revolution

With technology that creates fantastical game worlds readily available, its creators could’ve set it on Tatooine if they wanted to, or at least the moon. Instead, its aesthetic might best be described as Marfa Modernism. Lots of open space and clean lines. - Wired

A Long-Missing Stone Masterpiece, Discovered In A Front Yard

“It was like finding the Holy Grail. William Edmondson worked in Nashville, so who would ever dream that a piece would be in St. Louis?” - The New York Times

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