“Until John Thorpe, rooms in the great houses of England used to lead on, one from another, all grouped around a central entrance hall, and while some buildings had monastery-style external covered cloisters bordering central courtyards, these were always too nippy for a northern climate.” - The Observer (UK)
Sacre bleu! What is happening? A French artist won "a competition to replace the existing six windows installed by architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc in 1844 – even though the windows were not damaged in the 2019 fire.” - The Guardian (UK)
“Choir singers have lived in two handsome terraces of silvery-pink-stoned medieval houses beside Wells Cathedral for more than 650 years. But the gated close – which is thought to be the most complete and continuously occupied medieval street in Europe – is now in desperate need.” - The Observer (UK)
A bias toward contemporary art has pervaded museums across the globe for decades now, but as this year proved, work from past eras can just as much define the present as pieces made in the past couple years. - ARTnews
The atelier’s commissions have included replacing a third of Versailles’s garden statues with copies created from marble-dust resin and supplying Jeff Koons with five classical sculptures for the artist’s 2013 series “Gazing Ball.” - The New York Times
Also, the artwork thrown in the trash by accident, the four-year-old who accidentally smashed an ancient jar, the grown man who deliberately smashed an Ai Weiwei, the museum staffer who sneaked his own art onto the walls, and the women-only-no-men-allowed exhibition with the fake Picassos that weren't spotted for months. - CNN
The 12th-century Byzantine-style mosaics in the cathedral of Monreale, on a hill overlooking the Sicilian capital, Palermo, are exceeded only by those in Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. They cover almost 69,000 square feet and their gold leaf collectively amounts to almost five pounds of solid gold. - BBC
The corridor, designed by the Renaissance-era architect Giorgio Vasari, was commissioned in 1565 by Cosimo I de’ Medici, the second duke of Florence, and completed in just five months. - The Guardian
Monday’s fall economic statement included the proposed update to the copyright act, which will give Canadian visual artists a slice of the proceeds if their work is resold at galleries or auction houses. - The Globe & Mail
The ultimate reason is the wave of anti-monarchism that swept the country after Napoleon III's fall and the foundation of the Third Republic. Why New Jersey? Because of a certain Charles Lewis Tiffany. - The New York Times
"Klint family members say that a proposed deal between Zwirner, who is one of the biggest gallerists in the world, and the foundation’s board would open the door to the 'commercialisation' of the artist’s work, which they say directly contravenes her wishes and the statutes of the foundation." - The Guardian
Suddenly, at exactly 11:57 p.m., 92 electronic billboards all around Times Square stopped pulsating with ads for Coca-Cola, Broadway plays, and fashion brands, and began a synchronized 10-second countdown. Then a digitally animated young woman appeared on all 92 screens, with “Autofiction: Moving Pictures” written in white letters across her blue T-shirt. - Artnet
"Situated on a leafy corner of the Crown Heights neighborhood, the Brooklyn Children’s Museum commemorated its 125th anniversary last weekend with a daylong celebration. A few weeks earlier, its president and chief executive, Atiba T. Edwards, had his own anniversary — his first year on the job." - The New York Times
It examined many large buildings built on the strip, half of which were built in 2014 and after, and found that 35 had been affected by sinking or "subsidence" of between two to eight-centimetres. - Dezeen
