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VISUAL

Bernini’s Designs For The Louvre Were Too Much Even For Louis XIV

Yes, the favorite sculptor and architect of 17th-century Rome was the first designer whom the Sun King commissioned to make over the traditional Paris home of France’s monarchs. Yet construction was stopped and Bernini returned to Rome just a few days after the foundation stone was laid. Here’s why. - Artnet

Jean Nouvel’s New Museum In Paris Upends The Traditional Gallery

Nouvel’s latest movie: a new home for the Fondation Cartier, a private art foundation established in 1984 that’s dedicated to the accumulation, display and creation of contemporary art. It is now headquartered in a remodelled 19th-century building in the heart of bourgeois Paris, right across the rue from the Louvre. - The Guardian

The Controversial History Of The Union Jack (And Why It’s Prominent Right Now)

Its meaning and symbolism are under the spotlight in debates often producing more heat than light. Is the increasingly widespread public display of the union jack – and the St George flag – patriotism or provocation?  - BBC

Here’s The First Smithsonian Museums Exhibition To Be Cancelled Due To The Government Shutdown

“The National Portrait Gallery has postponed the opening of an exhibition for its triennial Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition as the Smithsonian Institution prepares to run out of federal funding. The Outwin 2025: American Portraiture Today exhibition was expected to open next Saturday, October 18, and remain on view through August 30, 2026.” - Hyperallergic

Philadelphia Museum Of Art Renames Itself As What Most People Call It Anyway

The change to “Philadelphia Art Museum” was simply an acknowledgment of basic reality, says Luis Bravo, PhAM’s design director. And yes, the new acronym is PhAM, not PAM. There’s also a new logo, a new typeface and even new museum guard uniforms. - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)

In The Current Environment, Is There Room For Truth-Telling Art?

These episodes highlighted the vulnerability of the US’s state-funded cultural sector under an autocratic populist president determined to suppress artistic expression perceived as intolerably “woke”.  - The Art Newspaper

How Contemporary Art Is Taking On Nigeria’s Identity

“Many of these artists deal with the idea that Nigerian culture has to be taken as a multinational and multi-ethnic question, in which artists are free to disrupt and redirect different narratives in service of their own artistic vision. So when we talk about independence in this exhibition, it’s not just about political independence. - The Guardian

Government To Dissolve Antwerp’s Museum Of Contemporary Art

In a move to “thoroughly reform the landscape” and achieve a “more logical distribution” of visual art there, the regional government of Flanders in Belgium will transfer the collection of the museum (known as M HKA) to what will become the Flemish Museum of Contemporary and Current Art in Ghent. - ARTnews

In Gift Worth $60 Million, LACMA Gets Its First Klimt, Schiele, And Kokoschka Works

“More than 100 works of Austrian Expressionism worth ‘well over’ $60 million are being gifted to Los Angeles County Museum of Art by the family of Otto Kallir, a renowned art dealer who immigrated to America in 1938 after the German Reich annexed Austria.” - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)

Sotheby’s Sells Its Longtime Manhattan Headquarters

The move marks the latest step in a real estate overhaul that includes its 2023 acquisition of the Breuer Building, the Whitney Museum’s former home on Madison Avenue, and Gantry Point, a new 240,000-square-foot complex in Long Island City. - ARTnews

Major UK Galleries Report Precipitous Drop In Sales

Both galleries reported a nearly 90% decline in pre-tax profits, coinciding with a rumored multiyear art market downturn marked by a global decline in public auction sales and a slew of gallery closures in the United States. - Hyperallergic

The Chairs Frank Lloyd Wright Designed For The Guggenheim’s Café Have Finally Been Fabricated

“Now, nearly seven decades later, the Museum of Wisconsin Art has commissioned a pair as part of a new exhibition that reframes Wright’s furniture within the Wisconsinite’s practice and American modernism more broadly.” - Artnet

France’s Major Museums Worry That Trump Will End Tax Deduction Crucial To Their American Fundraising

The concern is a possible change to the ‘equivalency determination,’ through which a foreign organization can be deemed equivalent to a public charity in the US. This process makes possible the “American Friends” groups, such as the American Friends of the Musée d’Orsay and the American Friends of the Louvre. - ARTnews

How The US Government Shutdown Is Affecting Museums

Smithsonian–run institutions remain open using funds from previous years through October 11. Should the shutdown last beyond that date, the Smithsonian will also close. Open-air memorials and monuments, including the National Mall, are still open to the public under the National Park Service contingency plan. - ARTnews

What The LA Fires Taught The Art World

While the scope and scale of the art losses are still being determined, claims may take years to resolve. - ARTnews

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