Over the past seven years, "this scandal — now known as 'the Ruffini affair' — has engulfed figures ranging from curators at the Louvre to leading auction-house executives. It has also given rise to an endless litany of conflicting and sometimes changing opinions, both technical and connoisseurial. … Now, he has decided to tell his side of the story."...
The repeated, record-setting acqua alta events of late 2019 caused an estimated €300 million in damage to the Byzantine-style landmark — and floods are expected to get more frequent and severe as sea level rises. What's more, the long-delayed MOSE floodgates in the Venice lagoon aren't enough to protect St. Mark's, which lies at one of the lowest points...
Last July, after a tenure that had been widely viewed (at least from outside) as a major success, Nathalie Bondil was dismissed from the Montreal museum amid allegations that she created a "toxic" work environment. Now she's returning to France to become director of exhibitions and collections at the Institut du Monde Arabe. - ARTnews
"Without long insights into the early diversity programs, our profession cannot address the structural inequities that perpetuate the need for entry-level opportunities targeted for non-white individuals. Museums must acknowledge the stigmatizing, tokenizing, and economic effects of these programs, in addition to the opportunities they offer." - Hyperallergic
And visitors who have been in lockdown number ... infinity? ... and have been absolutely starved for art are more than happy to be in the galleries, masked, in person. - The Guardian (UK)
Protests have been going on outside the museum for the last three weeks. "These protests, called 'pop-up deoccupations' in the activists’ parlance — have so far been tame, focusing on 'speakouts' and performances while keeping a measured distance from the museum’s entrance. But this might change next Friday, April 30, as the activists plan to escalate their protests and bring them...
The litigation after the artist's death in 2018 has been extensive, but perhaps the fees were quite a bit more extensive than they should have been. "The attorney general’s office filed papers in Knox County Probate Court this week demanding that the executor of Indiana’s estate, James W. Brannan, a Maine lawyer, put back into the estate nearly half...
All of the eight reopened briefly in 2020, between July and October. Coronavirus surges in November closed them again. But many others in the Smithsonian portfolio have remained closed since March of 2020, and the schedule for those isn't yet clear. - The New York Times
Or so some believe. "The more you look at images from the walls of Lascaux and Chauvet, the more you realise art really has invented nothing since those days at the end of the ice age. It is hard to take in how comprehensively these ancient artists anticipated the future. It takes time to fully absorb this – say,...
"It took all of six minutes for Massimo Pulini to realise that the small oil painting due to go under the hammer in Madrid earlier this month with a guide price of €1,500 ($1,800) could be worth millions. … Within two weeks, Spain's culture ministry to impose an export ban. The painting was pulled from auction. Pulini, a...
For their study, the researches utilized artificial intelligence technology to examine the writing on the scrolls, comparing the look of certain letters and analyzing patterns that appear in the ink. The study did not offer details on the identities of the two possible authors of these texts. - ARTnews
From reducing waste and maximising urban greenery to collaboration and lobbying for change, solutions to reduce pressure on the planet are now taking centre stage. - Dezeen
It seems that, in many places, a multitude of vermin took advantage of the lack of traffic in museums during the pandemic to stage an invasion and, potentially, a delicious banquet. (Mmmm, priceless historic textiles!) A sharp-eyed conservator at the Getty in L.A. noticed an increase in noxious lepidopterae last April, early on — and so began the museum's...
Jerry Saltz and Kenny Schachter team up to "test" the NFT market. "To be clear, NFTism doesn’t necessarily disrupt anything but rather presents a market alternative to the traditional gallery system. In the process, it ushered in a unexpected audience of crypto collectors, empowered a whole new generation of artists with easy access to that audience, and instilled the...
The paint, developed at Purdue University's mechanical engineering department, reflects 98.1 percent of the sun's rays, while the strongest heat-resistant white paints currently on the market reflect 80 to 90 percent. The new pigment's superpower is that, by absorbing so little infrared heat, it actually cools the material it's covering below the ambient temperature. (So far, tests show 8...
