After 15 months of COVID-19 restrictions, deaths, infections, fear, and all kinds of life challenges, we must have more public art. "It does a simple but essential thing: reminds everyday people that they are not alone in this bizzarro moment, and miraculously and fortunately, they are still alive and kicking." - Hyperallergic
Last week, the global crime-fighting group debuted a new app that aims to make the process of identifying and reporting stolen works as simple as swiping on a smartphone. After downloading the free app—called ID-Art—users can upload images or input keywords to search for information about specific missing objects. - Smithsonian
Experts including Rossella Rea, the former director of the Colosseum, have raised concerns about the project’s €15m ($18.2) price tag, and claimed that the new floor will obscure views of the Colosseum’s subterranean bowels. - The Art Newspaper
"As the Museum of Contemporary Art prepares to reopen after a historic pandemic closure, it finds itself in the midst of restructuring, moving director Klaus Biesenbach into the role of artistic director and hiring an executive director to co-run the institution with him. But The Times has spoken with more than two dozen people including current and former MOCA...
No one quite agrees on what this gold rush means. If you ask hard-core champions of Bitcoin — the often-libertarian “crypto natives,” as they call themselves — NFTs presage the future of digital property. They’re a glimpse at a coming day when people spend their income on digital items they can trade, resell or hoard as an investment; when...
To outsiders, street painters of all sorts might seem to be natural allies. But that’s not always the case. Rivalries and territorialism are always part of the picture. For some, street painting is meant as a gift to society; for others it’s pure rebellion; for most it’s somewhere in between. After two weeks of turf war, the wall at...
We’re talking about everything from Navajo turquoise and silver to Zuni inlay. It’s a huge tourist draw and one of New Mexico’s most important industries. But today, con artists are flooding the Indian jewelry marketplace with cleverly disguised counterfeits, cheating consumers out of millions of dollars. - KRQE
In Benin City, in what was historically the metalworkers' quarter on and around Igun Street, skilled artists continue to make figures with the traditional techniques used to make the famous Benin Bronzes now in museums in other parts of the world (and gradually being repatriated). - Artnet
The burial places, all cut into rock, were found by accident in one part of a larger necropolis in Upper Egypt. Some date back to the end of the Old Period of ancient Egyptian history, about 4,000 years ago; the most recent are from the late Ptolemaic era, which ended with the defeat of Cleopatra VII by Octavian (who...
In an open letter published yesterday in the Dutch newspaper NRC, 100 notable cultural figures, including Stedelijk director Rein Wolfs, artist Renzo Martens, Rijksmuseum director Taco Dibbits, and Van Gogh Museum director Emilie Gordenker, wrote that the law would enact too many barriers for museum goers. - Artnet
The Thompson Center is Chicago's premier example of Jahn's work, and the project that made him famous. Intended to take government from distant to literally transparent and accessible, it became a vital and diverse, if increasingly shabby, space; its spectacular atrium was the apparent inspiration for Jahn's later, massive Sony Center in Berlin. - Chicago Reader
If you’re in a major metropolitan area and have ever remotely shown interest in an art event, you may be bombarded by ads on social media for “Immersive Van Gogh.” Or, wait, was it “Beyond Van Gogh?” But you swore the email receipt said “Imagine Van Gogh: The Immersive Exhibition.” - Washington Post
Nearly 20 years ago, Anne d’Harnoncourt, the museum's then-director and CEO, proposed to Frank Gehry that he replicate the galvanizing effect of his Guggenheim Bilbao by digging beneath the museum. The idea did not strike the architect as peculiar. “I said, give me the problem,” recalls Gehry, now 92. “I’m ready.” - Architectural Record
"The mansion was recently listed for sale — along with an adjoining building — with an asking price of $22.5 million. That has caused a measure of distress among some people who have worked for years to restore what they regard as a crucial monument to Tiffany's genius." - The New York Times
From the statement released by Black Obsidian Sound System (B.O.S.S.), one of five art-and-social-justice collectives nominated for this year's prize: "The urgency with which we have been asked to participate, perform, and deliver demonstrates the extractive and exploitative practices in prize culture, and more widely across the industry — one where Black, brown, working-class, disabled, queer bodies are desirable,...
