He had knowledge, taste, charm; two high-profile galleries; a beautiful partner and baby daughter. Now he's in prison for fraud, internationally reviled, and owes $86 million. As one friend-turned-victim puts it, through "a toxic mix of arrogance and alcohol, ... he's sabotaged his entire life for short-term greed. It's just stupidity." - The Guardian
"It must be close to the Capitol, close enough to implicate and shame those inside it on a daily basis. ... After every mass shooting, turn on the lights and the microphones, and let no political leader who makes the symbolic pilgrimage escape speaking actual truth on the site." - MSN (The Washington Post)
Jean-Luc Martinez, who stepped down as director last year when his contract wasn't renewed, as well as the head of the museum's Egyptian art department and the editor of the journal Revue d'Egyptologie, were questioned about items sold to the Louvre Abu Dhabi and the Met Museum. - ARTnews
Guston didn’t know what to say about the Klan or about racial violence, except that he knew to fear it as a Jew, and to both oppose and feel implicated in it as a white American. Nearly 50 years after he painted The Oracle, I can’t honestly say I know more. - The Atlantic
An L.A. native, Clara Kim has been senior curator of international art at Tate Modern since 2016, where she organized an acclaimed survey of artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen in 2020 and Kara Walker’s lauded Turbine Hall commission, Fons Americanus, in 2019. - ARTnews
The Carabinieri say so, but at least two prominent art professionals disagree: Titian scholar Andrea Donati ("sensationally wrong ... I cannot even see the shadow of Titian in this portrait") and art historian and former Italian culture minister Vittorio Sgarbi ("If that's a Titian, I'm Napoleon!"). - Smithsonian Magazine
Discovered by a Turin branch of the cultural heritage unit, a subsidiary of the Italian state police known as the Carabinieri, the 16th-century work, titled Portrait of a Man with a Beret, first went missing two decades ago from an undisclosed location. - ARTnews
The emergence of deconstructivism – an ungainly portmanteau of the mid-to-late twentieth-century philosophical movement, deconstruction, and 1920s Russian constructivism – suggested that the avant-garde's apparent demise may have been rather exaggerated. - Dezeen
"Teasing a fake Louis Vuitton x Beeple collaboration, the hacker first tweeted out a raffle entry and then a link where followers could claim one of 200 free NFTs Beeple was supposedly offering, ... possibly resulting in the loss of over $438,000 worth of cryptocurrencies and NFTs." - ARTnews
It has become a hot political issue: $789-million to build a new museum? That feels like a lot to some British Columbians, particularly as the pandemic drags on, family doctors are quitting while citing low pay, and affordable housing remains a pipe dream out here. - The Globe & Mail (Canada)
The claim: It's for earthquake protection. The politics: Extremely complicated. The CEO's claim: "Adding up all the issues and what it would cost to upgrade the building and fix its problems it makes more sense to build a new museum." - Toronto Star
With a lot of planning and flexibility, of course. And a sense of humor. "Let’s consider this my 'embodied perspective,' however frazzled and distracted that might be." - Hyperallergic
True, Woman - Ochre has been recovered and restored. But that's not the issue. "The artwork’s return to view raises the question of to what extent visitors will see the painting, with its grotesque — some say sexist — depiction of the female form, in a different light." - The New York Times
