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Could (Should?) Cities Be Built Of Wood?

 I’ve been waiting years for the emergence of a bold timber architecture with designs that take advantage of the material’s expressive personality, its strength and malleability, its ability to support immense burdens or be worked in fine filigree, to form great blocks and stiff walls or else to bend like reeds. - New York Magazine (MSN)

A Group Of Artists Put Up Billboards (Arty Ones) To Try To Energize Voters. Did They Succeed?

"Dancing between art, philanthropy and activism, For Freedoms addresses issues including racism, misogyny, violence and free speech, most visibly by commissioning artists to make billboards. They hope their imagery will provoke questions in people who see them." The results of the election have them reassessing their efforts. - The New York Times

Sally Mann Photographs Of Children Removed From Museum As Police Investigate Obscenity Charge

Though they depict no sexual activity, Mann's nude portraits of her young children have attracted controversy ever since they first appeared 35 years ago. This week five of them were taken down from a group exhibition at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth after a complaint was filed with police. - Glasstire

Pushing Back Against The Pushback Against Social Justice and Art

In the current climate, I would argue there are few more urgent subjects for art than identity and contemporary politics, just as was the case when the Whitney staged its groundbreaking biennial in 1993. - The Art Newspaper

Getty Images And Shutterstock To Merge Into Photo-Licensing Giant

"Getty Images on Tuesday said it has agreed to merge with its rival Shutterstock in a cash-and-stock deal … valued at $3.7 billion." - TechCrunch

AI Suggests Iconic Painting Wasn’t By Raphael

The team used pictures of verified Raphael paintings to "train the computer to recognize his style to a very detailed degree, from the brushstrokes, the color palette and the shading and every aspect of the work." - CNET

Nick Cave’s $1 Million Artwork At Kansas City Airport Taken Down And Might Not Return

"Cave’s kinetic sculpture The Air Up There … consists of 2,800 colorful spinners that dangled from the ceiling of the check-in hall at Kansas City International Airport. But it was removed in October after the part of one spinner fell to the floor below." - The Kansas City Star (Yahoo!)

Did A Blockchain Billionaire Squash An Article About Him Eating Maurizio Cattelan’s Banana?

According to Fortune, Justin Sun “pressured the crypto trade publication CoinDesk to retract a December 2 article by Callan Quinn that was critical of Sun’s press conference,” where he ate the banana for which he’d paid millions. - ArtNews

London Relaxed Its Rules About Turning Office Blocks Into Apartments, But It’s Still Slow Going

“There has been a surge in applications for office-to-residential conversions since the lifting of an office space limit last March. However, architects say they can be daunting and costly with challenges around deep floorplates and a lack of natural light.” - The Guardian (UK)

The Architects Were Fascists, So Should Italy Tear Their Buildings Down?

"There is no room for revisionism concerning the regime’s cruelty, but the Casa del Fascio and other buildings by Terragni and his circle show how complicated it can be to pass judgments on the intentions and messages of the architects who served it.” - The New York Times

Georgia O’Keeffe, When She Was At Home

Photographer Todd Webb chronicled much of the artist’s private life. For instance, “O’Keeffe kept a series of Chow dogs, which she loved for their loyalty and dignity, their massive beauty. Their coats were so thick that she had a shawl made from the sheddings.” - The Atlantic

Ten Most-Interesting Museum Acquisitions Of 2024

We’ve parsed through museum acquisitions lists and compiled 10 notable additions to United States institutional collections in 2024. - Hyperallergic

UK Proposes Spending £46 Million On Statue Of Queen Elizabeth. Should It?

Such a staggering budget may seem to befit the late queen, a towering figure of British history, but why is so much money being thrown at this statue when the country is still gripped by austerity? - ARTnews

How Researchers Stitched Together 8000 Images To Reveal Medieval Painting In A Church

 The image was created by digitally stitching more than 8,000 photographs of the curving walls, taken in the crawl space behind the panelling which could not be dismantled as it forms part of the choir stalls.  - The Art Newspaper

Where’s The Art Market Going In 2025?

 If the market woes of 2024 continue, expect 2025 to winnow the field of art fairs, auction houses, and galleries. Lest we forget, the art world has expanded greatly in the last decade. This year will likely decide how much of that new infrastructure the market can actually support. - ARTnews

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