"The Edo people in the Kingdom of Benin, modern Nigeria, created their extraordinary sculptures with melted down brass manilla bracelets. … A team of German researchers compared their metal with metallic ores and mines across Europe before tracing them to the Rhineland in western Germany." - The Guardian
"'Florida encourages instruction on the classics and classical art, and would not prohibit its use in instruction,' Alex Lanfranconi, communications director for the Florida Department of Education, said in a statement." - ARTnews
As part of their gift, the Shirleys will give SAM 48 works by Calder, spanning the artist’s career, with mobiles at various sizes from the large-scale to the intimately small, as well as works on paper. (The approximate value of the 48-work donation is $200 million.) - ARTnews
The $25 million sculpture dates to 225 C.E., and is believed to have been looted in the 1960s from a shine at Bubon, an archaeological site in southwest Turkey. It had been on loan from a collection in Switzerland since 2011. - Artnet
Hirst did the originals, back in the 1990s, by dripping paint onto a rotating canvas. Now he and his partners have set up an AI generator with which you can designate colors and spin styles — and then get the resulting work as either a hard copy or an NFT. - Artnet
"Arie Wallert, a former Rijksmuseum scientific specialist, … is convinced that there are two versions of the young woman playing a guitar: the long-accepted painting at Kenwood House, in north London, and a very similar composition that has been in the Philadelphia museum's stores for nearly a century." - The Art Newspaper
Greater specialisation had become necessary and appropriate as construction grew in complexity, and they felt this compartmentalisation of roles would allow all aspects of architectural work to be carried out more skilfully. The logic is understandable, the outcome disastrous. - Dezeen
It’s no longer necessary that he connect in people’s minds with any actual art. It’s enough that he stands for that bigger thing: unfettered creativity. In fact, it’s better. A clear line connects Picasso’s description of his pictures as “a sum of destructions” and the capitalist mantra of “creative destruction.” - Washington Post
Yes, the family had long called it “The Bruegel,” but it was an affectionate dig at a painting that was clearly a fake. Turns out, the family joke was a hidden masterpiece, a genuine work of Pieter Bruegel the Younger, a 17th-century Flemish artist. - Washington Post
Six years ago, the National Geographic Society, decided that the sculpture, known as “Marabar” and designed by the artist Elyn Zimmerman, was in the way of expansion plans for its headquarters, and later agreed to help find it a new home. - The New York Times
To avoid a charge that could have sent him to prison for up to 30 years, Mihcael Rohana — who did the deed at Philadelphia's Franklin Institute in 2017 — will plead guilty to interstate trafficking, which carries a maximum two-year sentence. - KYW (Philadelphia)
Siddal died young, and her husband Dante Gabriel Rossetti took up a lot of the air about the movement she was part of, both as model and as painter. "Regarded as an appendage to her husband, she remained unknown during her lifetime." - The Observer (UK)
"The Gilbert and George Centre, which they have planned for years, is a built representation of their slogan 'art is for all' and designed as a gift to the community they have lived and worked alongside together for most of their working lives." - The Observer (UK)
