The ruins of the ancient Persian capital, built in the 6th century BCE, are an important locus of Iranian national pride and a major tourist attraction. Now lichens, algae-fungus hybrids, infest the stone monuments, dissolving minerals and penetrating surfaces by 1.5 cm, slowly breaking the ruins down. - AFP (MSN)
But not quite fully reassembled. Giorgio Vasari's 1541 portrayal of the Five Virtues, painted for the ceiling of a Venetian palazzo, was broken up and sold off in the mid-1700s. Except for one cherub in the corner and a bit of Faith, the panels have now been recovered and restored. - Artnet
Wilde’s grandson said of the sculpture: “It seems to say ‘here is a monument to a man whom society decapitated’. How do we want to remember him? Amusing, entertaining, engaging or carved up and beheaded for breaking the law of the time? I know which I prefer.” - The Observer
“Others had similar ideas, but he was the one who did it. The tube map really is something that deserves to be called iconic: it is even an international icon really, because so many people have used it as the basis of their own network designs.” - The Guardian
Footage from CCTV cameras - posted on Ai Weiwei's Instagram account - showed a man vigorously pushing the sculpture over, breaking it and then holding a piece of it over his head. - Reuters
Or rather, with glass plates shaped like SIM cards, so important to most refugees’ stories. "This collection has become a rich archive of migration stories curated entirely by the people they represent.” - Fast Company
“A huge sculpture of Oscar Wilde’s head lying on its side, his face sliced into segments, has been condemned as ‘absolutely hideous’ by the playwright’s grandson.” - The Observer (UK)
Guillaume Lethière “was one of the most prominent and influential figures in French painting during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, captivating international audiences with his technical precision, arresting portraiture, and grand-scale history paintings.” - Hyperallergic
“An archipelago of 10 micro-galleries stretches around neighborhoods in Long Beach as well as in San Pedro and Lomita. Two more, also in Long Beach, are set to be built in the coming weeks.” - Los Angeles Times
“'It’s similar to why I use gunpowder,' Cai told me. ‘Because using gunpowder, there’s always surprise and unexpectedness. You want to control it, but then it’s always uncontrollable. It’s just like AI.’” (Of course, this is the display that injured spectators and worried USC students.) - The Guardian (UK)
“The particular qualities of architecture as a creative pursuit (as opposed to, say, novel-writing) lend themselves to the screen, big or small. This can be as true in psychological terms as visual ones.” - The New York Times
“These painters buttressed one another during the lean months, the haves tending to the have-nots, united in their distaste for the Salon’s stale, imperious criteria.” - Los Angeles Times (MSN)
On Christmas Day, 1985, two veterinary students broke into Mexico City’s National Museum of Anthropology and stole more than 100 “archeological pieces from the rooms dedicated to the Maya, Mixteca and Mexica civilizations.” (The Gael García Bernal movie Museo shows a dramatic recreation of the heist.) - El País
When you want to see the next land artwork, you just keep skiing (or hiking). The curator of Powder Mountain: "This is such a tremendous opportunity to really think about commissioning work in dialogue with seasonal rhythms.” - The Guardian (UK)
The complainers, and the police, said the painting of a naked woman could be pornographic. The artist: "I don’t know what kind of pornography they’ve been looking at, but it’s definitely not my painting.” - The Guardian (UK)
