Archaeologists have finally found physical evidence for something they had long suspected: the temple complex included an educational institution, likely for training scribes and priests. They have also discovered a collection of tombs dating from several centuries after Ramses, indicating that the site was in use long after he died. - Artnet
Only one museum in Mexico, with comparable material, didn’t make me feel culturally exhausted or embarrassed by my ignorance in this way. - 3 Quarks Daily
Sarah Boardman won a nationwide “call for artists” by the Colorado state government to paint its official portraits of Obama and Trump. At the unveiling of Trump’s in August 2019, Boardman said she painted in the style of artist Lawrence Williams, who created 43 of the presidential portraits in the state building. - ARTnews
“Call them what you like — mud trays, clay troughs, unbaked earthen dishes — but the four 3x1½-inch dull-colored things hardly get the pulses racing. … A new study … (suggests they were) objects used in the funerary rites of Osiris, the ancient Egyptian god of the afterlife.” - Artnet
“Ordinarily, paintings and sculptures are exempt from customs duties,” says Nicholas M. O’Donnell, a partner in the Boston law firm Sullivan & Worcester, but “under the recently announced tariff it gets a little more complicated”. - The Art Newspaper
On March 6, representative David Lowe filed House Bill 3958, which outlines a proposed civil penalty against any museum showing “certain obscene or harmful material.” The Texas Penal Code defines “obscene” as any kind of performance or material that depicts sexual acts without literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. - ARTnews
For the first time in its history, the National Gallery in London is offering an overnight stay to the lucky person who wins its new prize draw, which has been launched before its public reopening next month. - The Guardian
Sarah Boardman: “President Trump is entitled to comment freely, as we all are, but the additional allegations that I 'purposefully distorted' the portrait, and that I 'must have lost my talent as I got older' are now directly and negatively impacting my business.” - BBC
At least, that’s what Philip Kennicott thinks: “What will become of the one-man Kinkade business model if there is no Thomas Kinkade, or people lose interest in him? A stash of originals and secret works of tormented genius is a hedge against that.” - Washington Post (MSN)
Perhaps that’s not a long list, but still - its design is inspired by the Sydney Opera House, and the plant “stands like a pair of minty green pagodas on the edge of the Irish Sea.” - The Guardian (UK)
“His departure comes as President Trump has targeted the Smithsonian Institution, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture, in an executive order,” though the museum’s official statement was that he wanted to focus more on his writing. - The New York Times
The Temple Anthropology Lab and Museum (TALM) officially opened this week. “The space was languishing and something needed to happen — either it was going to be shut down or someone was going to be having to take care of them.” - Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
From the banana on the wall to the butt-plug-shaped balloon to the (alleged) vulva in Versailles, here’s a chance to revisit some of the biggest brouhahas of the past quarter-century. - ARTnews
