“Monuments are supposed to be collective tributes to shared ideals. Like Confederate statues, would function as the opposite — broadcasting a one-way message.” - Aesthetic Insecurity
“Destroying the Vaillancourt Fountain, its supporters say, would be erasing history and modern architecture, and counter to the city’s reputation for being weird.” But wow, has the city neglected it for years. (The city says it just sort of aged out. Yup.) - The New York Times
One artist wrote that the private university's censorship of other artists’ work, mostly about immigrants, “is a loss for the students and for the art community, and it signals that the gallery, under current conditions, can no longer function as a place for art.” - Hyperallergic
As the developer mulls a gubernatorial run, Carolina Miranda has some thoughts. “These places are rigidly controlled simulacra. … Collectively, these cloyingly tantalizing spaces offer an insightful read on his vision for real cities and the political points he likes to make about them.” - New York Review of Architecture
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
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
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
“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
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)
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
“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
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
“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!)
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
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
