ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

VISUAL

Hermitage Employee Breaks Visitor’s Nose (Captured On Social Media, Of Course)

“I am at the General Staff building of the Hermitage right now and an employee broke the nose of the person I was with. Is this normal?” Mironova asked her followers on Instagram after the assault. - The Art Newspaper

Amid Chicago’s Grand Architecture, Its Ugliest Buildings

Chicago loves its architecture and loves showcasing it to the world and tourists. But if everything you’re seeing is great and beautiful, you need to know the ugly to understand the beautiful. - Yahoo! (Chicago Tribune)

Why Amsterdam Just Decreed That All New Buildings Be Made Of At Least 20 Percent Wood

Increasing the use of timber in the city's construction projects is hoped to reduce reliance on steel and concrete – materials that create large amounts of carbon dioxide during production. - Dezeen

That Godawful Dorm Design For UCal-Santa Barbara? It May Be The Best We Can Hope For These Days

Henry Grabar lays out the web of dysfunction, failure, and perverse incentives that leads to a respected state university accepting, with no changes, a design by a billionaire who's never studied architecture for a 4,500-student dorm building whose bedrooms have no windows. - Slate

Why Hong Kong’s M+ Museum Is Important, Despite All The Censorship Controversy

"With 700,000 square feet of space, it is expected to be a major entry into the region's art scene. … Below, a look at the institution's history, its inaugural presentations, and its difficult road to opening." - ARTnews

What Architects Want Out Of The Climate Change Conference

Leading architecture and design figures attending the summit expressed concerns that the built environment is not being talked about enough, as well as calling for clear, achievable targets to bring down greenhouse gas emissions. - Dezeen

The Artist Who Brought Day Of The Dead Into Focus For The United States

No, today isn't "Mexican Halloween." Just ask artist Ofelia Esparza. "At its core, the tradition is a pitched battle. Forgetting, Esparza said, is what Day of the Dead is fighting." - Los Angeles Times

The Secrets In Van Gogh’s Olive Trees

It helps to see his paintings near each other, but it's not just viewing that's useful; the knowledge comes from a "years-long, collaborative conservation and scientific research project" between the Dallas Museum of Art and the Van Gogh Museum. - Hyperallergic

Tracey Emin Says She’s Been Mischaracterized, And Her Art Overlooked

The artist, who shot to fame with the work Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995, says she's been characterized as a narcissist, and that has made critics overlook how serious her art is. - The Guardian (UK)

As Lockdown Ends In Australia, Artists Are In Desperate Straits

A Melbourne gallery director says that along with years of massively shrinking arts funding, "the pandemic lockdowns left the industry on its knees. ... 'We have lost a generation of artists’ work,' he says." - The Guardian (UK)

Do Buildings Have “Moral Purpose”? Jacques Herzog Thinks Not

“They do congresses and symposia and they speak about this and that. I have to say that I have huge doubts. Architecture is the art of facts. You do a building or you don’t, and if you do a building, do it right. We shouldn’t have a moralistic standpoint.” - The Observer

Architect Quits Over Dismal Mega-Dorm Project

The dorm, on the UC Santa Barbara campus would be an "11-story, 1.68 million-square-foot building with just two entrances. The massive dorm would house 4,500 students, 94 percent of whom would not have windows in their compact single-occupancy bedrooms." - Washington Post

Intact Ancient Roman Busts Found During UK Train Excavation

In a small village in southeast England, at an abandoned medieval church along a high-speed railway, archaeologists have made what they call an “astonishing” discovery: complete Roman busts of a man and a woman, as well as another statue of the head of a child. - Washington Post

Surge In Visitors at Chinese Heritage Sites. And Concerns…

According to a national survey in 2012, mainland China has more than 766,000 sites of immoveable cultural relics but only around 130,000 designated custodians. Short staffing means that some sites are left unguarded, while others are closed to the public. - The Art Newspaper

How Museums Are Struggling To Change What/How They Present

Museums everywhere have worked to excavate more complex truths in their collections for years. In the ongoing grind of a pandemic that has exposed every manner of social division and inequity, the demand is for that work to accelerate. - Boston Globe

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