"The entire board of Museums Aotearoa has abruptly quit after concerns about its governance and management. The organisation’s remaining executive director, Phillipa Tocker, is refusing to comment on the situation, despite being implicated in a report that the board resigned over 'fundamental disagreements' with her." - Stuff (New Zealand)
For centuries, great architecture involved innovation and invention within the context of established, tried-and-true styles, materials and techniques — and the result was buildings that were inspiring and durable. Then, argues scholar and critic Witold Rybczynski, came the 20th century, Le Corbusier and all that followed: the architecture profession became so insistent on invention and originality that, all too...
One of the departing execs, the director of human resources, left over conflict with his boss, the deputy director, and alleged retaliation which he said constituted a "hostile environment." The other was senior curator Mia Locks, who joined the museum in 2019 in part to oversee its new IDEA Initiative (for inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility); in her resignation...
Well, it's obvious, right? The New York governor "is currently resisting calls to resign over allegations of sexual harassment. So what better way to prove that he is definitely not a phallocratic bully than to 'ram through,' as one outlet puts it, a super-tall tower called Penn 15, and a vast development around it?" - The Observer (UK)
In 2020, after the death of George Floyd at the knee of police officer Derek Chauvin, "a team of researchers from the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis launched the George Floyd and Anti-Racist Street Art database to record and map anti-racist street art in the wake of Floyd’s murder. Crowdsourced through an online submission form, the database now includes more than...
Artist Kenneth Tam started to keep a spreadsheet as microaggressions arose at the beginning of the pandemic. Then the micro became far too macro. "The rise of racist attacks, some of them horrifyingly lethal, has galvanized Asian-American artists around the country. They are leveraging social media to raise awareness, gathering to protest despite the pandemic precautions, making new work, and...
A rock wall, and a water feature as well, to be precise. "This is a debate in which everyone is a little right, and a little wrong, and this kind of argument can take a deceptively large toll on collective goodwill. The Cultural Landscape Foundation is an enormously valuable group when it comes to educating the public about mid-century...
Of course, online shopping has done the most damage to physical stores. But do they need to be demolished? "Gems facing the wrecking ball include Birmingham’s mid-century Rackhams, which is currently home to House of Fraser, Debenhams in Taunton, which was built in 1938 and extended in the 1960s, and Marks & Spencer’s store near Marble Arch in London, which...
The outrage was so strong, including in statements by St+art India, that the beer company is backing down. Of course they can't fix what happened, and "it remains unclear why Budweiser chose to paint over these specific wall, but amends are in place. Budweiser is now approaching the original artists from Bollywood Art Project and St+art India to 'restore...
But first, it needs to sell you a blank book. "The Sketchbook Project works like this: people interested in submitting a sketchbook order a blank one from the website. When it arrives, they fill it with art, writing, decoupage, pop-ups, or anything else that fits their chosen style or theme. Some of the more unique sketchbooks have included embroidered pages...
Across the Iberian peninsula, more than 50 groups are working to save what they can of the cityscapes that are under what they feel is a kind of attack. "As small businesses close, they’re often replaced by a familiar roster of global behemoths with little connection to the city, said Laura Asensio, a graphic designer based in the north-western...
Most people still do not really understand it, but with the influx of cryptocapital into the NFT art market, all eyes are now glued to the possibilities of NFT art. “This whole mainstream sweep happened sooner than we anticipated,” says Jonathan Perkins, the co-founder of SuperRare, which launched in 2018. In its first year, it averaged about $8,000 a...
Back in 1909, a couple of very prominent German art historians decided, for various reasons, that a wax figurine of the goddess Flora that one of them had picked up at a London antique store simply had to be a genuine Leonardo da Vinci, and announced this with great fanfare. The London Times responded that no, the bust was...
Gallerists, angry that their competitors at auction houses were allowed to continue operating during France's ongoing pandemic lockdown, and arguing that online sales don't work for their business (collectors want to see the art they're buying in person), sued the French state, the prime minister, and the health minister. France's Council of State has dismissed the suit, ruling that...
"Jean-Luc Martinez, … whose job security has been a matter of public speculation for weeks, … has been on a media tour in recent weeks, offering interviews to newspapers, magazines, and television outlets explaining his achievements at the world's most visited museum. … 'His enemies accuse him of selling the museum to tourists, carrying out costly , buying mediocre...
