An “exclusive negotiating agreement” was approved during a December 6 Las Vegas City Council meeting to develop a parcel of land in the city’s downtown, paving the way for a major cultural institution in a destination known primarily for gambling and entertainment. - Hyperallergic
After hiding from authorities for seven months, Nicholas Dombek appeared at a Scranton, Pa. courthouse. He's one of nine alleged members of a ring that stole valuable sports memorabilia, art, and other items from 20 venues including Scranton's Everhart Museum, from which a Warhol and a Pollock were taken. - ARTnews
Christie’s reported a 20 percent decline in its total sales, plummeting from $8.4 billion in 2022 to $6.2 billion in 2023. Meanwhile, Sotheby’s projected in December that its 2023 sales would total $8 billion, on par with the equivalent figure from the previous year. - ARTnews
Even more arguments about appropriation. Parasocial aesthetics. (Yes, there's a definition of that.) Art that's about trying to outfox or even break AI. And there's more … - Artnet
Ben Davis: "I always say: Futurology is mainly people telling you what corporations are already doing. Here, I’m trying to avoid predictions like, 'art gets more interactive' or 'limitless content-on-demand,' because obviously that is just restating the proposition generative A.I. is being sold on." - Artnet
Early in December, the Art In Public Places Commission narrowed dozens of submissions to just three and posted them online with a call for feedback. They got what they asked for — just maybe not what they expected. - Baltimore Banner
The Americas dominate this year's list, with three buildings in New York, two each in Vancouver and Sao Paulo and one in Mexico City. The other two come from the Asia-Pacific region, with one in Shenzhen and the other in Sydney. - Dezeen
"If the former colonizers of Togo saw the Palais de Lomé, the country’s first major art and culture park, they might have found it a 'nightmare,' said Sonia Lawson, the center’s founding director." - ARTnews
To take stock of the past year, Artforum asked an international group of artists to select a single exhibition or event that most memorably caught their attention in 2023. - ArtForum
"The factory was opened in 1721 by Spain’s King Felipe V. He brought in Catholic craftsmen from Flanders, which had been part of Spain’s empire, to get it started. … Some of the original wooden machines are still in use." - AP
This year, at least 1,000 birds died in one day from colliding with a single glass-covered building. In New York, which lies along the Atlantic Flyway, hundreds of species traverse the skyline and tens of thousands die each year. - The Guardian
"Lina Mendoni promised that the London institution’s revered Greek galleries would never go empty. 'Our position is clear,' she said. 'Should the sculptures be reunited in Athens, Greece is prepared to organise rotating exhibitions of important antiquities that would fill the void.'" - The Guardian
Approximately 2,600 feet above the ancient Pueblo cliff settlements, the archaeologists discovered a sprawling collection of “huge rock panels” stretching about 2.5 miles around a large plateau. - Miami Herald
"Lito Masters has partnered with several major museums to carry out detailed scans of paintings by artists including Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse and Wassily Kandinsky. It then uses 3D-printing technology to create textured, stroke-for-stroke reproductions on canvas or paper, complete with the originals’ cracks, ridges and imperfections." - CNN
