Seven days after someone in Austria decapitated a sculpture of the Virgin Mary giving birth, a vandal took advantage of Hurricane Beryl's strike on Houston to behead Shahzia Shikander's work Witness, which for some reason the organization Texas Right to Life has declared a "Satanic abortion idol." - The New York Times
"The indictment alleges that Christian Claus, 55, falsely claimed valuable paintings were stolen from his New Orleans residence in order to collect insurance money. … The indictment further accuses Claus of bribing a fellow officer to document the purported theft in the police report." - Tampa Free Press
"The Brera Modern will be inaugurated this fall, 52 years and 39 Italian governments after it was first envisioned. The new museum, just a few doors from Milan’s Brera Painting Gallery, will house more than 100 contemporary art works that belong to Brera’s collection that have mostly been relegated to storage." - AP
Located at the historic Emigrant Savings Bank building in Manhattan’s Financial District, the HdL has begun hosting non-art events, including puppy yoga, pilates, and an immersive whiskey tasting with Irish storytellers. - ARTnews
“For decades, the sculpture gallery has had mostly blindingly white marble works, which were exclusively of white people. Now it does not. The intervention is part of a community-led project exploring the gallery’s links to slavery, colonialism and empire, of which there are many.” - The Guardian (UK)
"Created by Austrian artist Esther Strauß, Crowning drew intense ire from some conservative Christians who viewed the work as ‘blasphemous’ and ‘scandalous’ before an unknown party took matters into their own hands and sawed off Mary’s head.” - Hyperallergic
“‘The problem is not the art, it is the condition of capitalism and the market, and the way that this whole gig operates,’ said. He added that he had been avoiding going to his studio.” - The New York Times
Uh ... is the Pope Catholic? “It's an unfortunately common experience for Indigenous artists, according to Meika Ellis, a lawyer specializing in intellectual property who's based in Ottawa.” - CBC
Finally, a long stretch of nothing happening, of innumerable plans, tradeoffs, controversies, objections, and delays — that whole impasto of New York–style dithering — has been overwhelmed by the vivid, sensual presence of one of the city’s great public spaces. - New York Magazine (MSN)
The previous record holder was a lifesize picture of a wild pig believed to be created at least 45,500 years ago in a cave at Leang Tedongnge. - The Guardian
The Venetian master's Rest On The Flight Into Egypt (1510) was looted by Napoleon's soldiers in 1809 and returned at bayonet-point after Waterloo; it was stolen again in England in 1995 and found in a plastic carrier in London in 2002. At Christie's it sold for £17.6 million, a record for Titian. - CNN
The mayor of Jersey City and a major supporter of the museum, blamed the cuts instead on his deteriorating relationship with the state’s governor, Phil Murphy, who had supported the Centre Pompidou x Jersey City initiative when it was announced in 2021 as a way to attract tourists and New Yorkers. - The New York Times
"The Catholic diocese of Linz (in Austria) said in a statement that the Virgin Mary’s head was sawed off early Monday morning in an act of vandalism. The work, titled Crowning, by Austrian artist Esther Strauss is no longer on view (at Linz Cathedral)." - The Washington Post (MSN)
