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As Developers Swoop Into South London, Can Planning Offices Reject Ugly Schemes?

Yikes, says Rowan Moore: "The proposed building is, not to put too fine a point on it, a brute. ... It is out of scale with its surroundings and disconnected from them." - The Guardian UK)

The Fight To Get Family Images Back From Harvard

Tamara Lanier is fighting "to reclaim the daguerreotypes of her ancestors from the Peabody Museum at Harvard University," where they'd been since Louis Agassiz commissioned the photos in the 19th century "to 'prove' his white supremacist ideas about race." - Hyperallergic

Reclaiming Heritage Styles Means A Fresh Fashion Start In Much Of The African Continent

Yes, the reclaiming started in the 1960s. But "today's new cohort of designers is going a step further – not just questioning western dress forms, but searching for and breathing new life into lost aesthetics, craft and processes." - The Observer (UK)

The Black Artists Left In Limbo At The Super Bowl Stadium

Yeah, never a good sign: "The city gave up its customary percent for art ordinance as part of its contract with the property’s developer, Hollywood Park." And now, as the developer seems to refuse to move forward with artists' projects? There's little recourse. - Los Angeles Times

British Artist Sonia Boyce Wins Venice Biennale’s Golden Lion

Boyce is the first Black woman to represent the UK at the Biennale. The jury "commended Boyce for raising 'important questions of rehearsal' as opposed to perfectly tuned music" in her piece Feeling Her Way, which combines music, sculpture, collage, and video. - The Guardian (UK)

The Artists Of Ukraine Deal With The War In A Variety Of Ways

Kinder Album says, "Now I need to draw, I don’t have time to think, I need to express the feelings of the moment, because tomorrow something else will happen. Before the war, I had a lot of time. Now I don’t." - The Guardian (UK)

A Russian-less Venice Biennale Is Different

While the cool contemporary art crowd strolled among the exhibits, Ukraine was being pummeled by missiles, and there was hardly a Russian in sight. But curators, collectors, dealers and artists were staging plenty of events to support Ukraine, and a passionate personal address by Ukraine’s president. - The New York Times

When They Dug Up The Cobblestone Streets, They Found Beautifully Preserved Roman Mosaics

"A group of ancient Roman mosaics dating from the second century CE were hidden under the city streets of Stari Grad, on the idyllic Hvar Island in Croatia. Archaeologists discovered the stunning mosaic floors in February, before the city began construction on sewage and water pipes." - Hyperallergic

Latest Museum Worker Union Drive: The Seattle Art Museum

Because the museum refused to voluntarily recognize UPAT Local 116, the SAM Visitor Service Officers have decided to go independent — this time including only the security department to avoid legal headaches. The union would include up to 60 museum guards and VSO workers. - Hyperallergic

Removal Of Political Art From Hong Kong’s New M+ Fuels Worries About Censorship

Reports of the removal of the works fueled speculation that M+, a multibillion-dollar project billed as a cultural bridge between China and the West, would fall short of its global ambitions. - ARTnews

Architect Oscar Niemeyer’s Final Building Is Now Finished And Open

The late Brazilian modernist designed this public pavilion/art gallery at the Château La Coste winery near Aix-en-Provence in 2010, when he was 102. (He died two years later.) While the building has the signature Niemeyer characteristics (it's white and curvy), it's somewhat subdued by his standards. - Dezeen

Study: Public Art Reduces Traffic Accidents

A study conducted by Bloomberg Philanthropies examined 17 sites over two years, before and after they were painted with “asphalt art” (art on surfaces such as roads, sidewalks, and underpasses). - Hyperallergic

National Geographic Discovers Philadelphia’s Thousands Of Murals

Mural Arts Philadelphia started as an anti-graffiti program, drafting the taggers to paint something building owners and community members would be happy, not angry, to have.  Now the 4,000+ murals are a symbol of the city, and hundreds of locations are on Mural Arts' waiting list. - MSN (National Geographic)

Last-Minute Venice Biennale: The Ukrainians

Set among the nation-state pavilions that have stood in the Giardini for decades, it is a powerful statement in the face of the ongoing invasion by the Russian army. - Artnet

Climate Change Is Slowly Eating Away Ancient Buildings Of Mesopotamia

There has always been salt in the sand and groundwater of central Iraq, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.  But salinity levels are rising and sandstorms are becoming more frequent, eating away at the mud bricks of which the region's historic monuments are made. - The Guardian

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