“We’re at the place where the straw breaks the camel’s back,” Kate Scher said. She called the crisis a “combined product” of the museum’s lack of long-term funding, the pandemic, and shifts in audience habits and philanthropic priorities. - Seattle Times
MoMA had shut down completely. It would not reopen until the following day. Visitors were ferried to the exits. Outside, a soft-spoken museum employee was assisting would-be museumgoers with refunds. “They’re protesting Gaza—our trustees are funding it,” he explained. “We can’t let you see the artwork. There are too many protesters.” - The Nation
"After more than a decade of work, scientists from Argentina, Chile and the United States have successfully dated the Huenul 1 cave paintings in Argentina’s Patagonia region. … The oldest paintings in the cave date back 8,200 years, several millennia earlier than previously suggested." - El País (Spain) (in English)
"The 13 layoffs include salaried and hourly employees on (the) roughly 100-person staff. Front-line support staff … will not be impacted by staff reductions." In addition, museum director Mark Bessire is taking a voluntary 20% reduction in his annual salary. - Portland Press Herald
Arne Glimcher said the controversy surrounding Close is not his concern. “There has been too much about Chuck that isn’t about the art,” he said. “I only want to talk about the art.” - The New York Times
The exhibition, "showing at the Palestinian Museum in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a collection of protest that is as much about the art that is not there, lost in the war that rages in Gaza, as about the art that is on display." - The New York Times
"The online campaign began after an influencer encouraged his followers to ‘spam' the museum's Instagram posts with 'return the moai' comments. The British Museum said it deactivated comments on one social media post." - BBC
Danielle Mckinney had "spent her entire professional life pursuing photography without showing in a commercial gallery, but soon she had dealers on both coasts, solo shows lined up and a waiting list of collectors and institutions interested in acquiring her paintings. She was excited and perplexed." - The New York Times
The last Harlem show at the Met, in 1969 (!), contained no Black artists. This one is going to be different. Some works were stored in family members’ basements, for instance, and needed serious renovation. - The New York Times
The Wayfarers Chapel "sits on the Palos Verdes peninsula, which is prone to landslides. Cracks had begun to appear in the structure, and several panes of glass had broken in recent months.” - The Guardian (UK)
For experts in museum ethics, LACMA’s handling of the situation — which partisans see as a proxy battle in a larger war over evolving ideas of power at the nexus of art, justice and globalism — is unsurprising yet unfortunate. To them, the prevailing ethos is catch-me-if-you-can. - The Hollywood Reporter
It's "a scourge of selfie-takers backing into paintings and other objects. As many visitors are increasingly more interested in stunting for the ’gram than having an ecstatic art experience, art insurers hope to promote more rigorous protections." - Hyperallergic
"We call it OpenROM, a transformative project that will both literally and figuratively open the museum up even more, creating a thriving cultural and civic hub in the heart of the city and province." - MSN (CP)
Last April, the Shirleys donated 48 works by Alexander Calder to the Seattle Art Museum (SAM). While Calders proliferate in museums across the globe, these are particularly major ones—the group of works was valued at $200 million by a Christie’s higher-up. - ARTnews
