Starting this year, the award comes with $500,000 for the winner to donate to a non-profit of their choice. (Bradford has yet to announce his pick.) - The Art Newspaper
For a large part of international public opinion the return seems only fair. For some, it is a matter of aesthetics: repatriating historic monuments to exhibit them in the environment they were created for. For others, it is a political question: another step towards accepting the many crimes committed by imperialism and colonialism. - The Guardian
"In a small garden hut in north-eastern Tunisia, just a short distance from what was once Carthage, one man has spent most of the last 16 years smashing up sea snails – attempting to coax their entrails into something resembling Tyrian purple," for which all recipes have been lost for centuries. - BBC
A.I. as photographer falls short because it can’t truly empathize with a subject. A camera, no matter how high-tech, can’t grasp the unspoken stories in a person’s eyes or the vulnerability they show in front of the lens. Empathy is a major element of what allows a photographer to build trust. - The Observer
"They are expressing shock that Colette Pierce Burnette would serve just 15 months in the role, especially since they said the Indianapolis newcomer was quickly building new and needed relationships. … And they worry whether a high-quality candidate will even want to become the institution's CEO and president permanently." - MSN (Indianapolis Star)
The artwork was originally displayed in a small church in the Italian town of Santa Maria la Arita before being given to a local family who safekept it in their private residence for several generations. - ARTnews
“We have proved beyond reasonable doubt that Leonardo painted two Mona Lisas and this is the only candidate to be the second,” said Joël Feldman, general secretary of the Mona Lisa Foundation. - Artnet
"The then-culture minister, Dario Franceschini, sought applications from foreigners to shake up the museum sector, … appoint(ing) seven foreigners and several Italians with experience abroad." The new government, made up of right-leaning nationalist parties, is not following suit, and directors from abroad have good reasons not to apply. - The New York Times
The Donahues have since retaken possession of their painting from the auction house, Bonhams. All they have to show for their efforts is a new cardboard box, courtesy of the Bonhams shipping department. - The New York Times
The foundation said the half-a-billon-dollar commitment is the largest multiyear funding initiative in its history. “I feel proud that we’ve been catalysts and contributors to a larger conversation in the nation about monuments,” said Elizabeth Alexander, the foundation’s president. - The New York Times
"The collection, mostly from Crimean museums, was on loan to Amsterdam's Allard Pierson Museum when Russia annexed Ukraine's peninsula in 2014. Both Ukraine and Russia claimed the items but" — after a decade of legal proceedings — "Dutch courts backed Kyiv." - BBC
“When a society cannot withstand diverse voices, it teeters on the brink of collapse. I am committed to voicing my perspective. The irony lies in staging such an exhibition precisely when art is most crucial for expressing alternative perspectives. Yet, self-censorship robs artists of this vital opportunity, a poignant contradiction in a time demanding diverse voices.” - Hyperallergic
Artist Agnieska Pilat isn't worried that Basia the robot dog might take her job. She "is a self-described techno-optimist who loves the robots: she even lives with Basia, and takes her for walks around her neighbourhood in New York City." - The Guardian (UK)
A scholar says a youthful Hopper self-portrait at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts came from "a vast swindle by the late Rev. Arthayer R. Sanborn, whom she says stole hundreds of early Hopper works." - Boston Globe
"The space on the side of the plastic helmet has become, over the last 80 years, a canvas upon which the defining symbols of countless American communities have been established." - Slate
