Smaller and midsize galleries are caught in a vicious cycle: they can’t afford to participate in top fairs, yet they can’t afford to miss them. Today, half of all gallery sales happen at fairs, double the rate of just ten years ago. Galleries now participate in an average of five fairs annually, not out of choice but necessity. -...
The project looked pleasing on paper. Residents found it no better than a trailer park. Buildings leaked. Oriental Masonic Gardens closed a decade after it opened. - The New York Times
"The world’s second Sphere is planned to be built in the capital of the United Arab Emirates. … Under the deal, Abu Dhabi will pay a franchise fee to Sphere Entertainment to build the second location using its designs … as well as annual fees to Sphere Entertainment 'for creative and artistic content.'" - AP
Oliver Wainwright: "The Lizzie line is a worthy winner, providing a dazzling demonstration that, for all chaos surrounding HS2, Britain is still capable of pulling off gargantuan transport infrastructure projects with style and panache." - The Guardian
"The Grand Egyptian Museum will open 12 halls with exhibits about ancient Egypt starting this week ahead of the still-unannounced official opening. … The museum, a mega-project near the Giza Pyramids which has cost well over $1 billion so far, will open the halls for 4,000 visitors per day starting Wednesday." - AP
"Egyptian and German experts have successfully restored the lost colors and glimmering metals that once enlivened ancient Egypt’s second largest, and perhaps best preserved, temple … the Temple of Edfu, which is devoted to the falcon god Horus and situated along the Nile’s west bank, just below the river’s midway point." - Artnet
Bjarne Melgaard, whose career soared in the 2010s, developed some very ill-advised habits (including crystal meth) and ran up big debts. Two investors gave him roughly $10 million in this Faustian deal — with a contract Melgaard says he was too drunk to understand at the time. - The New York Times
Walker, who has been a board member of the National Gallery since 2019, is perhaps best known for his 11-year tenure at the helm of one of the nation’s largest and most influential philanthropies, the Ford Foundation.
The Nairobi National Museum, flagship of Kenya’s museum system, is in trouble, overwhelmed by a bounty of specimens and a lack of money to keep them safe. Darkening the outlook are criminal charges against its former director-general for allegedly masterminding a scheme to steal $4 million from its coffers. - The Wall Street Journal
As in, as big as movie screens across the world. “The paintings and the film developed in tandem. Kaphar would wake up to write at 5 a.m., drive his children to school, then come to his studio and listen to what he’d written via an app on his phone.” - The New York Times
"We’ve got lots of old Victorian statues of men, particularly in Leeds, and I think there was an ambition to redress this gender imbalance in public art in the city.” - The Guardian (UK)
“Built in just three years and inaugurated as part of the 1900 Paris world fair, the Grand Palais, a steel-and-glass monument, has a floor space covering 775,000 square feet. ... More steel went into its construction than into that of the Eiffel Tower.” - The New York Times
“Our facility has been designed to withstand a direct hit from a category three on the second floor, we just completed a 25,000 square-foot renovation, which brought up to code the first floor for a direct hit at a Category Four,” Tomor told ARTnews. “So we’re ready.” - ARTnews
Adalbert Parlagi and his son Franz kept meticulous ownership and search records. After Franz’s death in 2012, Françoise Parlagi stumbled upon her father’s cache of documents, including the original receipt from her grandfather’s purchase of the Monet pastel. - AP
