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Tribute Or Marketing Stunt (Or Both)? Secretive Seattle Street Artist Stalks Manhattan Recreating “Shadowman”

Richard Hambleton painted his dark silhouette figures around the Lower East Side in the 1980s, becoming "the godfather of street art." The artist known as Nullbureau has lately been painting fresh copies of Hambleton's Shadowmen around New York, and some Hambleton devotees are outraged. - The New York Times

Sotheby’s Launches An NFT Marketplace

The layout of the Metaverse website, similar in format to NFT-specific platforms such as OpenSea and Nifty Gateway, is designed to display the NFTs so that viewers can easily see the transaction history of any piece. - ARTnews

First There Was Wall Street’s “Charging Bull”. Then Came “Fearless Girl”. Now There’s A Bronze Gorilla.

Why? Because capitalism has gone bananas. So now there are 10,000 bananas (real ones) piled around Charging Bull, with a seven-foot statue of the late Harambe the gorilla a few feet away. As with Fearless Girl, this is a marketing stunt. - Artnet

Oslo’s Towering New Edvard Munch Museum

"Rebranded simply as MUNCH, it will open on 22 October following a decade of development drama, political U-turns and staggering logistical challenges. The result is one of the largest single-artist museums in the world." - The Art Newspaper

Why It’s Good That UCLA Is Selling Its Picasso But Bad That The Met Is Selling Historic Photographs

What it all comes down to, writes Christopher Knight, is what the money from the sale will be used for. - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)

Vienna’s Museums Now Have An Onlyfans Site To Promote The Nudes In Their Collections

Why? Because Facebook, Instagram and TikTok keep taking down their nude artworks — Peter Paul Rubens, Egon Schiele, even the Venus of Willendorf — for violating obscenity rules. - ARTnews

The Virtual Gallery Revolution

With technology that creates fantastical game worlds readily available, its creators could’ve set it on Tatooine if they wanted to, or at least the moon. Instead, its aesthetic might best be described as Marfa Modernism. Lots of open space and clean lines. - Wired

A Long-Missing Stone Masterpiece, Discovered In A Front Yard

“It was like finding the Holy Grail. William Edmondson worked in Nashville, so who would ever dream that a piece would be in St. Louis?” - The New York Times

The New Activism: Art Attacking The Institutions — Any Institution, Including Those Who Show The Art

One irony of contemporary art that critiques or transcends the institution is just how central the institution remains to it. Indeed, the complexity of the art ecosystem as a reflection of global power is at the heart of Forensic Architecture’s origin story. - The New York Times

Gilbert And George And London’s East End

When the artists go out, they find more than their favorite cafés: "Walking is their research. They photograph graffiti, look out for curious new images of street life, which make their way into their montage prints: canisters of clubbers’ laughing gas; women in burqas." - The Observer (UK)

Dali’s ‘Lips’ Sofa Started Life As A Back-Of-The-Envelope Sketch

Of course it did. - The Observer (UK)

Is The Line Between Inspiration And Appropriation Clear, Or Sometimes A Bit Fuzzy?

"People in power have always had a way of working nuance to their advantage. If consent is also nuanced, are we ready to admit that creativity and power go hand in hand?" - Hyperallergic

The New Maria Callas Statue In Athens Is Attracting A Lot Of Attention

But not for its skill or beauty. One complaint: "Nothing could be less representative of Maria Callas, as no opera singer, not even a second-grade student at music school, would ever adopt such a pose with crossed arms in front of their chest." - The Observer (UK)

Was Mexico City’s Pyramid Light Show A Victory For Decolonization – Or For Revisionist History?

During a light show on a replica of the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan, "vendors walked among the crowds selling Aztec-style souvenir headdresses with colored lights, filling the Zócalo with flashes of revelry." - Los Angeles Times

Reinventing The Nude

Mickalene Thomas keeps a "loving, lusty, multifaceted gaze on the Black female form." - The New York Times

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