"Prosecutors say Mehrdad Sadigh, a New York antiquities dealer whose Sadigh Gallery has operated for decades in the shadow of the Empire State Building, decided not to go to the trouble of acquiring ancient items. He made (thousands of) bogus copies instead." - The New York Times
Archaeologists using new measuring techniques have analyzed layers of a mineral glaze covering ancient figures in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, and the oldest layer appears to date back more than 40 millennia. - ABC (Australia)
What’s changed is not that art fairs have been diminished but that the auction houses built broader sales and marketing platforms in the years leading up to the pandemic, which have turned out to be effective at serving a large new audience for art. - ARTnews
"Not one, not two, but three separate traveling immersive exhibitions based on the famed Impressionist's paintings are currently gearing up — and one could be headed to a city near you." - Artnet
When Anish Kapoor acquired exclusive rights to Vantablack ("the world's blackest black"), Stuart Semple led a chorus of furious objections to the idea of owning a color. Despite plenty of puerile one-upmanship between the two since, the quarrel has led Semple to create some genuinely new pigments. - CNN
"Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie, an iconic modern art museum designed by Bauhaus pioneer Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, reopened to the public Sunday after a six-year refurbishment of the glass-fronted building." - AP
The coronavirus strikes the show in DC again, for the second time in 18 months. "Museum officials pointed to international travel restrictions, the safety of the staff who would install the exhibit, and the potential that the pandemic could worsen." - Washington Post
Artist Leon Kossoff died two years ago, still hoping he'd see the 14 paintings and six drawings stolen in 1972. The truck that left London disappeared from Rome and was later found 17 miles away with the locks smashed and Kossoff's works all gone. - The Observer (UK)
And now the media-created shtetl, possibly the most realistic one now in existence in the country, may become a sort of shtetl museum. - Times of Israel
The UNESCO Prix Versailles "recognises architecture that fosters a better interaction between economy and culture." The airport in the town of New Plymouth is up against airports in Berlin, New York, and Athens. - The Guardian (UK)
People in two communities in rural Colombia "wanted to use photography not only to document the aftermath of war and violence, but also to actively support peace" - and sometimes that included taking action as well as photos. - FastCompany
Following the legacy of Josephine Baker, James Baldwin, and others, Black artists "have often had to leave the States in order to activate the power of mobility denied them at home: A U.S. passport grants Black citizens access to most other countries, whereas merely jogging and driving while Black can prove fatal in America." - The New York Times
Why would a display of just six Titian paintings at a small New England museum qualify as the art event of the year, and possibly the decade? - Washington Post
