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New Buyers Are Painting San Francisco’s Colorful Old Houses “Gentrification Gray”

"To their proponents, they're understated and contemporary, with paint jobs that will take a beating without ever looking dirty. To their detractors, they're unimaginative, historically inaccurate aberrations, the kind of thing an affluent biotech CEO who wears a gray Patagonia fleece vest every day might appreciate." - The Guardian

Qatar Says It Will Make Itself A “Vast Outdoor Art Museum” For World Cup 2022

The public art project will ultimately involve 100 installations (70 are now in place), by both local artists and Western big names such as Richard Serra and Louise Bourgeois, at stadiums, rail stations, schools and shopping areas in Doha and other cities. - Artnet

Climate Change Is Damaging Australia’s Ancient Aboriginal Rock Art

Veteran archaeologists have noted visible changes just over the past half-century or less. Much of the rock art is painted on sandstone, which absorbs water from rains that are getting heavier; some of that stone is collapsing as salt expands and contracts in more variable weather. - The Guardian

One Of New York’s Biggest Collections Of Antiquities Is In The Manhattan DA’s Office

"The Antiquities Trafficking Unit is very much a victim of its own success. Set up in 2017 … to curb the smuggling of cultural heritage, it has seized 3,604 illicit items." 2,281 of those are still there; here's a look at eight of them. - The New York Times

Even Ancient Egyptian Relief Carvers Had Interns, And They Messed Up Sometimes, Too

"Scholars have long believed that apprentices learned their craft before they were allowed to carve reliefs for rooms like this one," the Chapel of Hatshepsut in Thebes. But one archaeologist says that apprentices did work on the wall reliefs: you can see the corrections the masters made. - ARTnews

Hmnnn – UK Change Of Stance On Repatriation Of The Parthenon Marbles?

When Boris Johnson’s spokesperson was asked on Tuesday, he said: “I won’t pre-empt their meeting, obviously, but the possession of the marbles is a matter purely for the museum. It’s not one for the UK government.” - The Guardian

Hong Kong’s Ambitious New M+ Opens, Built For A Different Time, Different Politics

The museum compares itself to Paris’s Centre Pompidou and New York’s Museum of Modern Art — but it has already moved to censor work as it walks a tightrope between its aspiration to be a world-class institution and the limits on free expression in Hong Kong. - Washington Post

4,500-Year-Old Sun Temple Uncovered In Egypt

A team of archaeologists working at Abu Ghurab, 12 miles south of Cairo, discovered this temple underneath the ruins of a temple that had been excavated in 1898. It is one of just six sun temples believed to have been built in ancient Egypt. - CNN

Frida Soars Past Diego For Most Expensive Work Of Latin American Art Ever Sold

At an auction on Tuesday at Sotheby's New York, Frida Kahlo's self-portrait Diego y yo (depicting an image of her husband, Diego Rivera, on her forehead) sold for $34.88 million — roughly 3½ times the price of the previous recordholder, Rivera's The Rivals. - Hyperallergic

Christie’s Ploughs Ahead With Controversial Pre-Columbian Sale, But a Third Fails To Sell

The house’s “Pre-Columbian Art & Taíno Masterworks” sale was preceded by an in-person protest, a slew of media articles, and a petition that circulated on change.org, signed by 44,767 supporters trying to halt the sale. - Artnet

One-Day Strike Called At Museum Of Fine Arts, Boston

"More than 96% of the union, which represents public-facing staff, library workers, educators, curators, conservators, and administrative and professional workers, voted to picket outside the museum (on November 17). … Workers are concerned about pay, safety, workplace diversity, requiring union membership and job growth." - AP

45,000-Year-Old Painting Of A Warty Pig Upends History Of Art

The famous animal paintings in the Chauvet cave, of France, are dated at around thirty-five thousand years old; the Sulawesi warty pig outdoes them by roughly ten thousand years. - The New Yorker

We Each Process Color Differently. Here’s How

Colour has a life beyond any individual perception. It exists as both the quality of a thing as well as an approach to that thing, or “a dance between subjects and objects, mind and matter.” - Prospect

When The Uffizi Almost Sued Pornhub

To be fair to Pornhub, the Birth of Venus is definitely a "classic nude." But the larger issue is about how museums make money - and during COVID, "as in-person activity slumped, sales of licensed goods rocketed." Is it too much exposure? - The Guardian (UK)

England’s Artistic Culture Stretches Beyond London

You might think that's obvious, but it's not necessarily so to those in the capital city. Even during COVID, "London draws all the oxygen, not to mention the cash; once again, it’s as if nothing could possibly be happening anywhere else." - The Guardian (UK)

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