“Spanish police are investigating the disappearance of a Picasso painting, insured for €600,000 ($700,000), which vanished while traveling from Madrid to an exhibition in Granada … The gouache and pencil piece, Still Life with Guitar (1919), was meant to join more than 50 works in a new exhibition at the Caja Granada Foundation.” - Artnet
“Because of repeated postponements of the scheduled modernisation of security systems, cameras have mainly been installed only when rooms have been refurbished,” said the report from the government’s Court of Accounts. “Under the effect of increasing visitor numbers, the museum’s technical equipment became obsolescent much more rapidly.” - The Times (UK)
The cultural community is now reeling and searching for answers. Many institutions have shown resilience, and sprouts of resistance are emerging. But the community at large has been slow, or unwilling, to muster an effective counteroffensive. The next few months, many say, will be critical.- The New York Times
“I am hoping that people will take away from the whole range of exhibitions that we’re doing that democracy was achieved as a result of a struggle and that it was hard fought and hard won.” And she added, “that it is something that needs to be safeguarded.” - The New York Times
Their faces concealed, they rode a monte-meubles, a truck-mounted electric ladder that is a common sight on the streets of Paris, where it is used to ferry bulky furniture through the windows of apartments. - The New York Times
"Only the museum will require a paid ticket. Nearly a dozen other spaces — meeting rooms, classrooms, parks, an N.B.A.-size basketball court, even a branch of the Chicago Public Library — will be reserved for visitors or the activities of the foundation.” - The New York Times
In Los Angeles’s Historic Filipinotown, the “revision follows more than a year of conversations that included Filipino-led groups, local nonprofits and the muralist, Eliseo Art Silva.” - LAist
Gao Zhen’s “detention is linked to three very specific sculptures about the legendary founder of the People’s Republic, Mao Zedong. One entitled Execution of Christ represents a firing squad of seven Maos who are preparing to shoot Jesus.” - El País English
Marion Weiss and Michael Manfredi enjoy watching their architecture vanish beneath the landscapes they also design. Or is it all one artistic product? - The New York Times
“The thieves used a basket lift to access the room directly, forced a window and broke display cases to steal the jewels, before escaping on two-wheelers.” What is believed to be the Empress Eugénie’s crown, broken, was later found outside the museum. - Euro News (Yahoo)
‘Luxury needs this link to the world of culture, because that is what gives it its nobility, its legitimacy, its roots,’ says Jean-Michel Tobelem, a professor of management at the Sorbonne and expert in cultural policy. - Apollo
The Stirling Prize for the country’s best new building of the year, awarded by the Royal Institute of British Architects, has gone to the Appleby Blue Almshouse, a project providing affordable housing for seniors in London’s Southwark borough. It’s the second Stirling Prize for architects Witherford Watson Mann. - Dezeen
