ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

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In Egypt, 250 Ancient Tombs Discovered, Some More Than 4,000 Years Old

The burial places, all cut into rock, were found by accident in one part of a larger necropolis in Upper Egypt. Some date back to the end of the Old Period of ancient Egyptian history, about 4,000 years ago; the most recent are from the late Ptolemaic era, which ended with the defeat of Cleopatra VII by Octavian (who...

Dutch Museum Directors Protest Testing Museum-Goers

In an open letter published yesterday in the Dutch newspaper NRC, 100 notable cultural figures, including Stedelijk director Rein Wolfs, artist Renzo Martens, Rijksmuseum director Taco Dibbits, and Van Gogh Museum director Emilie Gordenker, wrote that the law would enact too many barriers for museum goers. - Artnet

Helmut Jahn Just Died In A Bike Accident — Might His Iconic Chicago Building Follow?

The Thompson Center is Chicago's premier example of Jahn's work, and the project that made him famous. Intended to take government from distant to literally transparent and accessible, it became a vital and diverse, if increasingly shabby, space; its spectacular atrium was the apparent inspiration for Jahn's later, massive Sony Center in Berlin. - Chicago Reader

Immersive Van Gogh Is A Hit. But Which One?

If you’re in a major metropolitan area and have ever remotely shown interest in an art event, you may be bombarded by ads on social media for “Immersive Van Gogh.” Or, wait, was it “Beyond Van Gogh?” But you swore the email receipt said “Imagine Van Gogh: The Immersive Exhibition.” - Washington Post

Philadelphia Museum Of Art Unveils New Gehry Addition

Nearly 20 years ago, Anne d’Harnoncourt, the museum's then-director and CEO, proposed to Frank Gehry that he replicate the galvanizing effect of his Guggenheim Bilbao by digging beneath the museum. The idea did not strike the architect as peculiar. “I said, give me the problem,” recalls Gehry, now 92. “I’m ready.” - Architectural Record

Race Is On To Save Boston Mansion Designed, Inside And Out, By Louis Comfort Tiffany

"The mansion was recently listed for sale — along with an adjoining building — with an asking price of $22.5 million. That has caused a measure of distress among some people who have worked for years to restore what they regard as a crucial monument to Tiffany's genius." - The New York Times

Turner Prize Finalist Group Calls Out Turner Prize: ‘Extractive And Exploitative’

From the statement released by Black Obsidian Sound System (B.O.S.S.), one of five art-and-social-justice collectives nominated for this year's prize: "The urgency with which we have been asked to participate, perform, and deliver demonstrates the extractive and exploitative practices in prize culture, and more widely across the industry — one where Black, brown, working-class, disabled, queer bodies are desirable,...

‘Irreparable Damage’ — Scholars Protest Newark Museum’s Plan To Deaccession Artworks

"When the Newark Museum of Art announced a plan to sell 17 objects in March, it provided few details as to which artworks might appear on the auction block. But a gradual release of the specifics has enraged some historians, including previous employees of the museum, who described the sale as a misguided attempt to monetize some of the...

Penn State University To Build Largest Art Museum Between Philadelphia And Pittsburgh

"The new 71,000-square-foot facility will be constructed alongside the botanic gardens at the university’s arboretum. It will increase the size of the museum by more than 40%, adding more space for exhibition, collections, and education as well as visitor services and administrative offices for the museum and the arboretum." - The Philadelphia Inquirer

Inside The Museum Of Disgusting Food

As with the Museum of Sex, in New York City, and the Museum of Ice Cream, in San Francisco, the Disgusting Food Museum is conceptually closer to an amusement park than to a museum. There are eighty-five culinary horrors on display—ordinary fare and delicacies from thirty countries—and each tour concludes with a taste test of a dozen items. -...

Could New York Get A Really Good Penn Station?

Justin Davidson refuses to relinquish hope. "The MTA, Amtrak, and NJ Transit have jointly released not one but two possible visions for rebuilding the rest of the Dantesque complex. And, lo and behold, they are both aspirational and realistic. The design ... amalgamates the jumble of bureaucratic fiefdoms, decades’ worth of duct-tape fixes, and a thicket of conflicting agendas into...

Cryptoart Isn’t New, And It Isn’t All NFTs

Instead, it's a way for independent digital artists to make a living. "Beneath the glossy auction houses, breathless headlines and outrage, there is a global ecosystem of crypto artists who entered the once-niche NFT art space motivated by passion and curiosity. Most aren’t raking in millions or leading major sales. But many are making a decent living — ditching...

NFTs Are The Newest Tulipmania

"Art NFTs put me in mind of film auteur Werner Herzog’s distinction between the 'truth of accountants' and 'ecstatic truth.' NFT mavens wax lyrical about the 'authenticity' of these tokens as if they are trading a semi-divine quality, yet the authenticity encoded by an NFT is the same kind encoded by a transaction number on a credit card statement....

Getting At Reality Through Blurred Photos

When artist Tabitha Soren had her third child, a friend suggested she photograph the experience. "Time can turn photographs into metaphor or allow them to become a symbol instead of a documentary picture; at this particular moment, mothers’ needs are on the minds of the country.  is about what mothers don’t show: the emotions and psychological states that we’ve all...

As Glaciers Melt, Relics From WWI’s Alpine Front Emerge

On the 10K Mount Scorluzzo in Italy, "the Austro-Hungarian soldiers who occupied those barracks were fighting Italian troops in what became known as the White War. There in the Alps — removed from the more famous Western Front, a site of bloody trench warfare between Germany and France — troops climbed to precarious heights in the stinging cold to...

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