Six million visitors coming through each year cause wear and tear even if they're not touching the walls or ceiling. A BBC crew pays a visit after closing time to see how conservators monitor and maintain Michelangelo's work. (video) - BBC
The researchers behind 100 Women: Architects in Practice hope that its title will ultimately sound as strange as a book about 100 left-handed architects, or 100 who happen to have ginger hair. We’re not there yet. - The Guardian
"Experts said it is from the workshop of important Flemish artist Pieter Coecke van Aelst, or by an artist in his circle. The triptych, (depicting the Adoration of the Magi) across three hinged panels, is due to go to auction next month." - BBC
"In a tersely worded statement sent out earlier today, (Gennaro) Sangiuliano called (an open letter calling for Israel to be excluded) 'shameful' and claimed that those who signed it had threatened to undo a culture of freedom in Italy." - ARTnews
Cartography has become one of the most successful technologies we have developed for understanding the world around us. At the same time, maps have become important cultural and artistic objects that we value greatly. - The Conversation
"(Dmitri Markov's) subjects were always the most vulnerable in society: orphans, alcoholics, addicts, homeless people, the very old and dying, conscripts and children. It was a side of Russia absent from bombastic official narratives under Putin, but one that was instantly recognisable to most Russians." - The Guardian
House Bill 4654, now in the state senate, would "remove exemptions for criminal liability from schools, libraries, and museums, allowing them to be criminally charged for the distribution and display of 'obscene' matter to minors." (The bill does not define "obscene.") - Artnet
What’s up at Mia? “Turmoil ... over exhibitions, equity and the institution’s future is boiling over into public view following the recent firing of a top curator." - MPR
The hundreds of paintings are dated to far earlier than other art in the area, making "these cave drawings the earliest known evidence of rock art in one of the last regions to be settled by humans." - Hyperallergic
"To live as an artist in exile is among the most glorious triumphs of human will: a spiritual victory.” But the cost is tremendously high. - The New York Times
“The institute’s decision to continue to fight the efforts by Manhattan prosecutors to retrieve its Schiele work makes it a lone holdout among the museums and collectors who received warrants from investigators telling them they possessed stolen property." - The New York Times
“With its slender vertical fuselage and long-stalled revolving restaurant, it speaks of the hopeful futurism of the 1960s, of the white heat of technology, of Minis and miniskirts and the Beatles.” - The Observer (UK)
"We have to make our galleries welcoming and accessible, and to make it clear they are not just about the past and full of dead white males.” Lower prices for those younger than 25 don’t hurt either. - The Observer (UK)
Honestly, the memes are everywhere on social media - and now there’s rat hole art for sale. Why enshrine a rat (or more likely a squirrel) this way? “The rat hole, in an odd way, conveys hope." - Chicago Sun-Times
"Her magically vibrant and simultaneously mournful and vulnerable painting expresses the dualism at the heart of her vision — and perhaps at the heart of existence itself." - Washington Post
