"Pandora VIII, an annual joint operation between customs and law enforcement authorities from 25 countries against international art trafficking, … involved several thousand checks at airports, ports, border crossings, auction houses, museums, and private residences." - ARTnews
"We know that there is a provenance verification opportunity here. We all know it and we all know that the art world is resisting it because it suggests transparency, which we say we want but we don't really want." - Axios
Numerous panelists obliquely referred to the fears around AI, offering reassurances without ever saying the words automation, labor, climate change, or super-intelligence. - ARTnews
“ The devastation was immense. The spire had gone, its collapse having destroyed part of the vaults at the crossing of the transept. ... The task of rebuilding Notre Dame was herculean.” - The Guardian (UK)
“The images are indelible: groups of soldiers sway and swoon in perfect synchronicity; top-hatted ambassadors from European powers squat barefoot on a tilted table or hang off its edges while discussing the fate of the Middle East; dancing girls tempt a drunkard in a tavern.” - The New York Times
And "Berlin-based artist Rheim Alkadhi says she will pull her work out of London’s Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) if the center does not take accountability for allegedly retaliating against workers who have expressed solidarity with Palestinians.” - Hyperallergic
Lesley Dumbrell "was shocked when the head of the painting department blithely told her that he was happy to have women in his class ‘because no doubt they’ll get married, and if they marry well they will become very good collectors of art.’” - The Guardian (UK)
“Given its fragility and waning life span, each successive showing of Hesse’s work is potentially the last. Time is part of the deal. Hesse knew this.” - The New York Times
The 20th century’s social housing “calls to mind towering blocks of flats, poorly maintained with dark, pokey and cold units. But alongside a rise in community living, the 21st century has brought quality construction, sustainability, and quality of life to the forefront of social housing design.” - The Guardian (UK)
An Indiana judge is facing that very question as Valparaiso University contends that it should be able to sell high-value paintings it owns, including a Georgia O’Keeffe landscape of the New Mexico desert, in order to finance a renovation of freshman dormitories. - The New York Times
It is speculated that the glass artifacts fell from the cargo of a ship battered by a storm in the shallow, rocky area of the sea. The ship’s wreckage is expected to be discovered in the vicinity. - Artnet
"As a virtuoso of pavilions, temporary structures, emergency shelter, and post-disaster community spaces, he’s developed designs that are quick, cheap, and clean to build, radiate elegance for as long as they last, and can later be recycled." - Curbed (MSN)
The Stanley Museum of Art at the University of Iowa restored a brass plaque and a wooden altarpiece to the Oba of Benin, the hereditary ruler of the kingdom from which 3,000-odd art objects — now distributed among museums, mostly in Europe — were looted by British soldiers in 1897. - ARTnews
