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The Slow-Motion Heist Of Pre-Columbian Antiquities From A Fort Worth Storeroom

In 1996, a wealthy collector donated a trove of ancient Peruvian ceramics and textiles — items which had no clear provenance — to Texas Christian University, which turned out to be ill-equipped to handle them. By 2001, most of them had disappeared. - Texas Observer

Why Your Local Bank Branch Looks More Like A Starbucks These Days

Increasingly, customers are visiting physical banks to receive guidance on products such as mortgages, loans and financial planning, while accessing more basic services online. These trends are industrywide, and Citi isn’t the only bank to rethink its physical spaces in response. - Bloomberg

Baltimore Should Get An Iconic Bridge To Replace Key Bridge

The city deserves a replacement that is similarly expressive of the working harbor’s importance to the city and its location as a gateway between the port and the Chesapeake Bay. This new structure must also serve as a memorial to the lives lost in the collapse. - Bloomberg

Stephen Fry, For One, Is Ready For Britain To Return The Parthenon Marbles

Indeed, he compares the Ottoman Empire giving away anything from Greece to Nazi Germany giving away French monuments. And it’s not the first time he’s hoped to push Britain into giving them back to Greece. - The Guardian (UK)

Artists Rally At The Hammer Museum After Attempts To Build Another Encampment At UCLA Fail

Their letter: “We refuse to be placated by images and objects while artists in Gaza, like Heba Zagout, are murdered everyday. … We refuse to hide behind the safety of four white walls while the Rafah Museum remains in ruins.” - Hyperallergic

Swiss Museum Removes Monet, Van Gogh After Facing Up To Their Possibly Nazi Looted Pasts

Kunsthaus Zurich is finally facing up to the issue, that is: “There have long been suspicions about the provenance of works in the Emil Bührle Collection - named after a German-born arms dealer who made his fortune during World War Two by making and selling weapons to the Nazis.” - BBC

AI Photography Contest Falls Apart When Winner Is Revealed To Be Human

A juried photography contest has disqualified one of the images that was originally picked as a top three finisher in its new AI art category. The reason for the disqualification? The photo was actually taken by a human and not generated by an AI model. - Ars Technica

Three Museums Back Away From Kehinde Wiley Exhibitions In Wake Of Sexual Assault Accusations

The Minneapolis Institute of Art and the Pérez Art Museum in Miami have called off their presentations of the traveling exhibition "Kehinde Wiley: An Archaeology of Silence" scheduled for this summer and fall (Miami) and winter-spring 2025 (Minneapolis). A separate show by Omaha's Joslyn Art Museum has also been postponed. - ARTnews

The Case Of The Still-Missing Panel From The Ghent Altarpiece

The panel depicting the Just Judges disappeared in April 1934. There were months of delicately worded ransom negotiations, and then, that November, the thief made a deathbed confession. There was plenty of evidence to confirm his account, but to this day there has been no sign of the panel itself. - History Today

Vandals Deface King Charles’ Official Portrait

Members of the public have been free to visit the portrait of the monarch, which is on display at the Philip Mould gallery in central London until June 21. - CNN

Anti-Israel Protestors Vandalize Brooklyn Museum Director’s Home

"Red paint was splashed across the front door and windows of Anne Pasternak’s home. Unfurled between two columns was a banner that read: 'Anne Pasternak / Brooklyn Museum / White Supremacist Zionist.' Beneath that statement, in a smaller, red font, were the words 'Funds Genocide.'" - ARTnews

Iconic Frank Lloyd Wright Theatre Reopens After Restoration

In Wright’s days, the venue would host weekly public movie screenings for 50 cents a ticket as well as concerts and other cultural events. However, the years were not as friendly to the theater as it had been to the Spring Green community. - Architectural Digest (MSN)

Vatican Arrests Former Employee For Trying To Sell Missing Manuscript By Bernini

The suspect was caught trying to sell the manuscript, which contains Bernini's designs for the altar canopy in St. Peter's Basilica, to a buyer who turned out to be a Vatican official. The suspect claims what he had isn't the missing manuscript and was a gift. - National Catholic Reporter

Now There Are Animal-Rights-Protesting Art Vandals, And They’ve Gone After Charles III’s Portrait

Activists from the group Animal Rising went to the new portrait of the British king (the red one), covered his face with a sticker of Wallace from the animated series Wallace & Gromit, and attached a speech bubble saying, "No cheese Gromit, look at all of this cruelty on RSCPA farms." - CNN

Why Is Parthenon Marbles Repatriation So Compelling?

All repatriation cases matter greatly to those involved, but that of the Parthenon marbles has become famous far beyond the dispute between the key parties of Greece and the UK. Why, then, do they resonate so deeply? - The Conversation

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