"Researchers examined 11 caves and rock-shelters , which feature art dating from 45,000 to 20,000 years old. … The scientists found that the art, which is made with red and mulberry pigments, is being physically weathered by a process known as haloclasty — when salt crystals form as a result of repeated changes in temperature and humidity." - CNN
"The challenge is a conversation starter and design exercise. It’s also a needed counter to commercial real estate developers, whose ideas of density tend to be based on a single principle — how many dollars they can squeeze out of every square foot — with little regard for green space or other community needs. (Case in point: those sad,...
The goal is to form a wall-to-wall union representing workers in nearly every aspect of museum operations. “We’ve got conservators, we’ve got people working in security who are on the floor, we’ve got frontline workers, educators, administrative staff,” says Elizabeth Norman, an Assistant Manager of Gallery Experience in the visitor experience department, one of the organizers. “There’s just a...
Chinese archaeology has a very different history from Egyptian archaeology. It has largely been done by local, Chinese archaeologists, for one thing; it was not an imperialist project. And it was also tied, early on, to nationalist claims of identity. - Washington Post
Christopher Marinello spends his life tracking stolen masterpieces. "I get a huge amount of tips, usually on WhatsApp. ... Sometimes they are from informants I work with, but I have to sift through a lot of garbage. I once had a guy tell me the original Mona Lisa in the Louvre was a fake, and that he had the...
And that seems like something to celebrate, and take advantage of, to a lot of museum directors. "We know that all museums’ audiences will be more local, which offers a great opportunity for arts and culture to sit at the heart of their communities, especially where those communities have experienced such hardship over the past year." - The Observer...
A massive government redevelopment plan - funded and touted by Prime Minister Narenda Modi - will demand "the demolition and relocation of iconic Indian institutions: the National Museum of India, the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), and the National Archives Annexe." Photographer Ram Rahman: "The suspicion of altering history by removing archival documents is something many...
After 15 months of COVID-19 restrictions, deaths, infections, fear, and all kinds of life challenges, we must have more public art. "It does a simple but essential thing: reminds everyday people that they are not alone in this bizzarro moment, and miraculously and fortunately, they are still alive and kicking." - Hyperallergic
Last week, the global crime-fighting group debuted a new app that aims to make the process of identifying and reporting stolen works as simple as swiping on a smartphone. After downloading the free app—called ID-Art—users can upload images or input keywords to search for information about specific missing objects. - Smithsonian
Experts including Rossella Rea, the former director of the Colosseum, have raised concerns about the project’s €15m ($18.2) price tag, and claimed that the new floor will obscure views of the Colosseum’s subterranean bowels. - The Art Newspaper
"As the Museum of Contemporary Art prepares to reopen after a historic pandemic closure, it finds itself in the midst of restructuring, moving director Klaus Biesenbach into the role of artistic director and hiring an executive director to co-run the institution with him. But The Times has spoken with more than two dozen people including current and former MOCA...
No one quite agrees on what this gold rush means. If you ask hard-core champions of Bitcoin — the often-libertarian “crypto natives,” as they call themselves — NFTs presage the future of digital property. They’re a glimpse at a coming day when people spend their income on digital items they can trade, resell or hoard as an investment; when...
To outsiders, street painters of all sorts might seem to be natural allies. But that’s not always the case. Rivalries and territorialism are always part of the picture. For some, street painting is meant as a gift to society; for others it’s pure rebellion; for most it’s somewhere in between. After two weeks of turf war, the wall at...
We’re talking about everything from Navajo turquoise and silver to Zuni inlay. It’s a huge tourist draw and one of New Mexico’s most important industries. But today, con artists are flooding the Indian jewelry marketplace with cleverly disguised counterfeits, cheating consumers out of millions of dollars. - KRQE
In Benin City, in what was historically the metalworkers' quarter on and around Igun Street, skilled artists continue to make figures with the traditional techniques used to make the famous Benin Bronzes now in museums in other parts of the world (and gradually being repatriated). - Artnet
