Rania Andouni was targeted for her gender expression - and when she went to the police station to file a complaint, the police not only harassed her further, but charged her. A Tunisian "sentenced Amdouni to six months in prison on the charge of 'insulting a public officer during the performance of his duty,' which is punishable by up to one year...
It all comes down to the earring. "The arresting piece of jewellery, which bursts from the borders of itself with piercing radiance like a celestial orb, transforms the static action from a callous chronicle of recurring cruelty, however impeccably wrought, to something more sympathetically mythic: a meditation on the interconnectedness of all things" - and the supposed godlike powers...
The fact that freelancers could (finally) tap into unemployment through the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance programs changed, well, everything. Sarah Rose Sharp: "In my experience, the best conditions for making art involve getting paid to make art where I’ve already built the infrastructure that enables me to make art. Since March of 2020, that’s what I’ve done, and it’s been...
The app is garnering millions of views, and some artists earn thousands (or more) for each short video they post. Some young artists are even "bypassing art schools and student loans, quitting their survival jobs and pursuing careers as full-time artists on TikTok. But the app’s insatiable demand for content is also bending their aesthetics in unexpected ways. What...
Black, who is also stepping down both as CEO and chair of his private equity firm the Apollo Group, was facing "mounting pressure from prominent artists and activists about his financial ties to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein." - The New York Times
Opened 27 February and running through to the end of May, a new exhibition, Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America, challenges and seeks to dismiss the legacy of Philip Johnson, the modernist master who did so much to start and cultivate MoMA. Presented in a gallery dedicated to Johnson’s memory, the participants’ introductory manifesto obliterates an inscription in his...
Mars House—which is staged on Mars in the promotional video—was designed in May 2020 using what is called “Meditative Design” principles. Jeff Schroeder, guitarist for The Smashing Pumpkins, partnered with Krista Kim to provide a prog-rock-inspired and suitably space-y accompanying soundtrack. - The Architect's Newspaper
The van Eyck masterpiece is the most stolen individual artwork we know of (one panel is still missing after 87 years), and its Flemish custodians have given it a €5 million, 20-feet-tall, meticulously climate-controlled, bulletproof display case as part of a €30 million installation at St. Bavo's Cathedral in Ghent. - The Guardian
"On the heels of a German state visit to Benin City, … the culture ministry and museums are now playing catch-up. … Culture minister Monika Grütters has called a meeting with relevant state culture ministers and museum directors in April to try to find a national strategy to address the handling of objects and art that were looted from...
After a couple of decades of enormous urban growth led to thousands of emptied-out villages, both Chinese government policy and the mood of ordinary people there have turned toward the countryside and its revitalization. Architects are joining the effort, using traditional building methods and materials to create less expensive structures that are easy and cheap to maintain. - The...
“The logic of the ghetto is to limit you. It says you cannot go here, or do this. If freedom is about that ability to move, then a protest machine that is mobile is important.” - Bloomberg
An archaeologist working at Olympia noticed what turned out to be one of the horns of the bull figurine sticking up out of the mud following a heavy downpour. The bronze is estimated to date from about 900 to 700 BC; because it has burn marks, scientists believe it was part of an offering to Zeus, to whom there...
The chairman of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority, the Lincoln Center-like complex under construction on the harbor, publicly pledged that curators at the District's flagship museum, M+, will see to it that all exhibitions comply with the law, which prohibits "acts of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign powers." The statement comes after a week of...
The institution has never searched for six directors simultaneously — although it has never had to develop two new museums at once, either. The absences come at a jarring time, when normal operations are in flux and finances are strained. - Washington Post
"The treasures unearthed at the Sanxingdui site in Guanghan, Sichuan, belonged to a highly-developed civilisation that may have lasted for thousands of years but never appeared in any historical records. … quality and craftsmanship far exceeds that of artefacts made at the same time in other parts of China." - South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)
