Even if you’re not a believer, the answer is probably a yes. “Gaudí’s mission was to find spiritual meaning in a world transformed by industry and machines.” - The Observer (UK)
In the Ireland of a thousand years ago, monks fleeing the Vikings spread their beautifully decorated version of Christianity to Europe. Some of those manuscripts survived an intensely brutal, violent millennium. - The Guardian (UK)
That “is partly because he is so intensely aware of a defining fact about his country: it’s an island. For Turner, Britain is bordered by death, terror and adventure.” - The Guardian (UK)
The two protesters, members of the German environmental group Letzte Generation (Last Generation), entered the gallery and attached one hand each to the frame of the world-famous artwork. - ARTnews
Supporters agree that “R-Evolution” by sculptor Marco Cochrane represents “feminine strength and liberation.” Critics complain that it’s just more of the male gaze and simply bad art. But even Uber drivers are talking about the piece and the issues involved, and that counts for a lot. - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
There is a sexy underground auditorium, a 60-seat café, and the entire second floor of the mansion is now filled with art. There’s almost twice as much on view now. What’s not to love? - New York Magazine
“(Carlos) Basualdo, 60, comes to Dallas from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where he rose through the ranks over 20 years to deputy director and chief curator. He succeeds Jeremy Strick, the Nasher’s longtime director who retired last June.” - KERA (Dallas)
“In January 2024, the work” — titled Le Nez — was sold to Geffen, seemingly on (Patrick) Sun’s behalf. Sun now says the sale was illegitimate.” The two are suing each other. - Vulture
“There is perhaps no institution on earth whose opening has been as wildly anticipated, or as mind-bogglingly delayed. ... Its construction has been such a fiasco — mired by funding lapses, logistical hurdles, a pandemic, nearby wars, revolutions (yes, plural) — that it begs comparison to that of the pyramids.” - The New York Times
“An archaeologist and curator … in Copenhagen finds that Greco-Roman statues were often perfumed with enticing scents like rose, olive oil and beeswax. These fragrances were ‘not merely decorative but symbolic, enhancing the religious and cultural significance of these sculptures.’” - Smithsonian Magazine
The controversy around France’s deal with India may appear more ambiguous to a Western audience. Is it France’s concern if the YYBNM decides to portray a skewed history of India that privileges Hindu culture and a Hindutva ideology, even if its role is limited to “specific areas of technical collaboration." - ARTnews
“Russia has stolen more than 1.7 million pieces of Ukrainian cultural heritage since its full-scale invasion began, according to the Ukrainian Minister of Culture and Strategic Communications Mykola Tochytskyi,” and has been selling many of those items on the black market. - ARTnews
“The slow collapse of the postwar avant-garde’s underlying tenets (no figuration! no storytelling! no obvious skill!) has allowed many to admit that Wyeth was onto something specific and powerful …, (and) I find it tends to overwhelm most reservations. What he was onto, in short, was mortality.” - The Washington Post (MSN)
If the museum experience is now more stylistically bifurcated — the Beaux Arts past on one side of the complex, a sympathetic but unapologetic contemporary aesthetic on the other — they unite in enhancing the museum experience. - Bloomberg
Effectively killing the NEH in its current form and then reallocating its money to build the National Garden of American Heroes—the centerpiece of Trump’s plans to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States (thus, 250 sculptures)—is yet one more missile launched in his administration’s ongoing culture war. - The Atlantic
