"In roughly 20 interviews with the Globe, former museum employees and board members described a stressful workplace, characterizing (director Matthias) Waschek as an 'intimidating' and 'erratic' leader prone to 'lashing out' at others for perceived social slights and other offenses." - MSN (The Boston Globe)
"Asked why he had cut off his left ear, the artist replied that this was a misconception and he had in fact only cut off 'part of my earlobe.'" (The M d'O also has an immersive Van Gogh room in this show, proving that pop culture can influence even the French.) - The Guardian (UK)
If you are fond of "odd, ugly, small-scale art that has a cracked and thwarted look, is radically antisocial, and radiates hidden agendas, you’re probably a fan of Albert Pinkham Ryder." - Washington Post
It was 1955, and he and a buddy were soaked to the skin when a couple sheltered, dried, and fed them. He later sent them a ceramic depiction of their black and white cat. - BBC
Native artists and others were protesting a "colonizer" statue in New Mexico when a 23-year-old wearing a MAGA hat shot and injured artist and climate activist Jacob Johns, Hopi and Akimel O’odham. - Hyperallergic
"Aboudia, aka Abdoulaye Diarrassouba, 40, whose art is inspired by street culture in his hometown of Abidjan in Ivory Coast, heads the Hiscox Artist Top 100, … based on the number of artworks sold at auction." The bestselling artist by cash value? You've heard of that one … - The Guardian
The unnamed, now-former collections management staffer at the Deutsches Museum in Munich took one painting right off the gallery wall, replaced it with a forgery and sold it at an auction house. He also stole three artworks from storage and sold two of them. Then he bought himself a Rolls-Royce. - CNN
In the 2010s, China built new museums with a frenzy. According to the China Museums Association, 1,563 new museums opened between 2009 and 2014. They face an increasingly chaotic censorship regime as well as the fallout from zero Covid policies, a global downturn and a collapsing property market. - The Art Newspaper
Unionized employees of the Art Institute of Chicago museum (AIC) and its affiliated school, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), have secured their first contract, which guarantees wage increases “across the board” over a four-year period. - ARTnews
“They are taking my work and presenting it as theirs,” said Christos Tsirogiannis. “They are showing off with my academic work and not giving me the credit. It is an abuse of my intellectual property. But now, enough is enough.” - The Guardian
It is not just the losses that are so damaging but also the way the museum has dealt with the issue since antiques dealer Ittai Gradel alerted its bosses after he became suspicious about objects being sold online. - The Standard
"A sacred tablet that was stolen by British troops during the 1868 Battle of Maqdala in Ethiopia was restituted in a service at a church in London on Monday. Also known as a tabot, the object is a symbolic representation of the Ark of the Covenant for the Ethiopian church." - ARTnews
