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Pennsylvania Academy Of Fine Arts To Shut Down Its Degree Programs

"The Academy … will keep its museum open and fully operating. It plans to carry on classes in continuing education and its K-12 arts programs. At the same time, PAFA intends to restore its comprehensive three- or four-year certificate program and relaunch it this fall." - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)

It’s Not Just The British Museum: Many Of England’s Museums Have Items Missing

"Freedom of information requests by the PA news agency to museums and galleries that receive public funding from the (national government) asking for details on absent items from the last 20 years found that more than 1,700 items were absent from collections." - The Guardian

Russian Billionaire’s Aide Testifies In Court About Sotheby’s Alleged Role Convincing Him To Overpay For Art

An adviser to a Russian billionaire asserted in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday that he and his boss had been tricked by a Swiss art dealer into wildly overpaying for works of art and that a Sotheby’s expert’s opinions played a role in persuading them to pay the inflated prices. - The New York Times

Is It Ethical To Have AI Complete A Painting Keith Haring Deliberately Left Unfinished?

Haring created the 1989 work titled Unfinished Painting as a comment on the lives unlived and the creativity unrealized because of the AIDS epidemic, which killed Haring himself a few months later. So when someone posted an AI completion on social media recently, reaction was swift and ferocious. - Hyperallergic

Newfields/Indianapolis Museum Of Art Is Losing Board Members Following CEO’s Unexplained Departure

Six of the board's 30 members have stepped down since Colette Pierce Burnette suddenly left Newfields in November after only 15 months as CEO. Most of the ex-board members have said nothing publicly about their resignations, though two have given hints of unhappiness about the manner of Burnette's exit. - ARTnews

Student At Art Institute Of Chicago Sues School For Anti-Semitic Discrimination

"Master’s degree student Shiran Canel — an Israeli-American Jew in her 30s who lives in the Chicago area — alleges the school discriminated against her during an admissions interview and then intentionally subjected her to a hostile environment following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel." - Chicago Tribune (MSN)

So Were The Book Of Kells Illuminator Monks On Mushrooms Or What?

"All the monks who worked on it shared a sense of revelation liberated from verbal meaning." - The Guardian (UK)

Why Is Plundered Art Still In Western Museums?

Museum professionals publish scathing books that indict the very institutions that pay their salaries. The ethics of exhibiting plundered art are called into question by the public. Curators, struggling to answer questions about what they have in their collections, admit that they don’t actually know what they have or why they have it. - The Walrus

Frick Collection Director To Retire After Museum Renovation Complete

Ian Wardropper, the director of New York’s Frick Collection for the past 13 years, will retire in 2025, not long after the museum unveils its long-awaited renovation to the public. - ARTnews

French President Macron Proposes Art For Notre Dame Windows. Outrage Ensues

More than 125,000 people have signed a petition decrying a proposal to replace the chapel windows designed by architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc in 1859 with stained glass artworks. - ARTnews

Inside The Shop Filled With Plastics That NY Artists Love

Even as other industrial materials shops move away (and galleries open in their place), "For 50 years, Canal Plastics Center has enticed artists, designers, and architects in need of acrylic swaths at a fraction of the price of metal and glass." - Hyperallergic

Hundreds Of Museums Suffer Cyberattack On Their Online Collections

eMuseum, the program that allows visitors to search an institution’s archives and collections suffered in the attack, as was a program named TMS, which stores donor names, loan terms, provenance records, the storage locations of artworks, and shipping information. - ARTnews

The Years-Long Oligarch-Versus-Art-Dealer Battle Arrives In A US Federal Courtroom — With A Suit Against Sotheby’s

Dmitry Rybolovlev has been pursuing dealer Yves Bouvier from country to country with lawsuits alleging that Bouvier fraudulently inflated prices for multimillion-dollar artworks (such as Salvator Mundi) and pocketed the difference. Rybolovlev accuses Sotheby's of assisting Bouvier, and the trial starts next week. - The New York Times

Director Of Uffizi Gallery Still Won’t Swear Off Running For Mayor Of Florence

Eike Schmidt's widely-praised tenure at the city's flagship museum just ended, and he's been appointed director of the Capodimonte Museum in Naples. But last summer Schmidt floated the idea of running for mayor with a nationalist party, and now he says only that he can't do both jobs. - The New York Times

Major New Forgery Scandal Comes To Light In Canada

An exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery grapples with how the museum ended up with ten fake works previously attributed to J.E.H. MacDonald, a member of the famous Group of Seven. - The Art Newspaper

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