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Artforum’s Editor-In-Chief Fired Following Open Letter About Gaza War

"A week after Artforum published a widely criticized open letter calling for Palestinian liberation that didn’t mention the Hamas attacks on Israel, editor-in-chief David Velasco has been fired" by the magazine's owners, Penske Media. - TheWrap

Museum of Censored Art Opens In Barcelona

"The Museu de l’Art Prohibit … aims to explain how censorship works by exhibiting artworks that have been subject to prohibitions (successful or merely attempted), and detailed documentation on how and why administrations, religious or cultural authorities have sought to curtail artistic expression." - MSN (The Telegraph)

The Director Who Transformed Boston’s Institute Of Contemporary Art Announces Retirement

Jill Medvedow, who in 1998 took over a small museum in a former police station with 20,000 visitors a year and turned it into a major institution in a new 65,000-square-foot building with 300,000 visitors a year, will step down at the end of 2024. - MSN (The Boston Globe)

A Crisis Of Art Criticism

The reasons for the stepchild status of criticism are as manifold as are their concatenations, not the least of which is the problem of identifying a shared idea or point of orientation when it comes to the practice. - Eurozine

Dutch Architecture Has Been Getting Greener. But Also More Boring?

Without getting overly nostalgic, it is almost impossible not to notice that the country, which for a good two decades on either side of the millennium produced some of the most striking, innovative and experimental architecture in the world, is now building a lot of boxes. - Dezeen

Where Did The Looted Sculptures Recently Returned To Nepal Go? This 11th-Century Monastery

Itumbaha, one of the oldest monasteries in Kathmandu, has not only received statues returned from the Rubin Museum and the Met. The Rubin is helping Itumbaha to catalog hundreds of items that have languished in storage there and to open a museum for them on the monastery's grounds. - CNN

Dallas Museum Of Art Lays Off 20 Employees And Reduces Opening Hours

The redundancies, along with closing the museum to the public on Tuesdays as well as Mondays, come as the DMA plans over $200 million in capital projects, including a major building expansion as well as major upgrades to security, electrical, HVAC, and fire suppression systems. - MSN (The Dallas Morning News)

I Reviewed The Most Popular Artist On Social Media. His Followers Came After Me. Here’s What I Learned.

Devon Rodriguez, known for his live drawings of subway riders, has millions of fans on Instagram and TikTok. Ben Davis reviewed Rodriguez's first solo show (whose opening was covered by CNN), and Rodriguez sicced his fans on Davis — who says this all "raises some larger issues worth thinking about." - Artnet

Cleveland Museum Of Art Sues Feds To Block Seizure Of Ancient Sculpture

The lawsuit comes two months after a New York judge issued a search warrant citing “reasonable cause” to believe the statue, which was legally acquired by the museum almost four decades ago, was stolen property. - CNN

The Twisty-Turny Saga Of The British Museum Thefts

So began an antiques whodunit—whose cast of characters includes an Oxford-based priest-cum-archaeologist, a handful of rare-gem dealers and some of the British Museum’s most august researchers—that has shaken the premise behind the museum’s most important reason for existing. - The Wall Street Journal

Ancient Scythian Gold Stolen From Ukraine Found In Spain

"Police said the 11 ancient gold pieces were smuggled out of Ukraine in 2016 to be resold in Spain. The bracelets, necklaces and earrings, from the 8th to 4th Centuries BC, had forged documents saying they belonged to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church." - BBC

Why Public Monuments Are Problematic

The problem with monuments and statues goes far beyond the issue of the legacies of slavery, important as that issue is. We need to learn to question all monuments rather than read them as factual documents of the past. - The Conversation

Mexico Embarks On Ambitious Efforts To Recover Ancient Heritage

In recent years Mexico has mounted an ambitious series of investigations and restitution efforts to reclaim the nation’s stolen cultural heritage, joining with other countries to correct decades of theft and colonial plundering. - The New York Times

Let Them Eat Cake, Biscuits, And The History Of Art

At Bobby Baker's restaging of her 1976 An Edible Family in a Mobile Home, visitors "five lifesize family members made of biscuits, meringue and cake (including, in an updating of the original, a vegan option)." - The Guardian (UK)

Did Brexit Move The Center Of The Art World Back To Paris?

One gallerist says, "The quality of the work is better, things are presented more thoughtfully. And collectors like spending more time here" (despite a resurgence of Parisian bedbugs). - The New York Times

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