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A Bold Proposal For Galleries

Cancel them. No reform. Abolition. "Why are horror stories of racism, sexism, and abuse in art galleries open secrets that remain unaddressed? The dominant agents of the commercial art world — galleries, auction houses, PR firms, and dealers — hold an obscene amount of power over images and their narratives. ... Employers are beholden to profit, and artists turn...

During The Pandemic, Art Going To Museums Needs Special Help

Art couriers can't ride in trucks with art, or ride in follow cars with other people, or generally do everything they used to do in order to get art where it needs to go - and to help mount it. What's happening now? Robots. (Well, iPads on wheels.) - NPR

Perhaps You Need Some Help This Week Recognizing Right-Wing Iconography And Dog Whistles

Here's a crash course in the iconographies of hate groups that have coalesced around the current president of the United States. - Hyperallergic

Why Do Some Of This Era’s Photos Look So Much Like Renaissance Paintings?

It's not an accident. Ask Reddit. "These comparisons, while often funny, also come across as shockingly honest. They push aside the veneer of the present and the sense that what we are experiencing is unique to the time we live in. What’s left are raw emotions, echoing through centuries." - Washington Post

What A New Video Game Teaches Us About The Ancient Greeks And Masculinity

For one thing, "we need to reorient our understanding of gender and beauty to talk about hotness in antiquity." - Wired

Coventry Rebuilt Itself After WWII, But Now Town Planners Want To Knock Those Buildings Down

Coventry is the UK 2021 city of culture. But ... yikes. "Much of the city’s pioneering postwar urban fabric is under threat. A gargantuan planning application has been submitted to demolish half of the town centre and replace it with a shopping mall with flats on top, in what has been condemned as a violent assault on the city’s...

This Old Dutch Master’s Art Is Totally Homoerotic — How Did Everyone Miss This For 400 Years?

Powerfully muscled backs, piston thighs, meaty buttocks you could bounce quarters off for days. "In a flare of lusty creativity, from the late 1580s until the early 1590s, this underappreciated Mannerist produced some of the greatest — and strangest — homoerotic paintings of all time. And ... this glaringly obvious fact been studiously ignored in almost all...

Guggenheim Museum Names Its First Black Deputy Director

Naomi Beckwith, 44, who since 2018 has served as senior curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, will oversee collections, exhibitions, publications, curatorial programs and archives in her new position, which starts in June. She will also provide strategic direction, the museum said. - The New York Times

Atlanta’s High Museum Receives Major Gift Of 19th-Century French Art

"The gift, from Atlanta collectors Irene and Howard Stein, which includes sculptures, prints and posters, is part of a larger bequest made by Steins, the museum announced on Wednesday. Included in the bequest are: 41 prints and posters and 10 sculptures by Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas, Gauguin and Desjardins; a drawing by Degas; and an oil painting by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux." -...

Smithsonian Abandons $2 Billion Redo Of National Mall Castle

The Bjarke Ingels Group proposal was unveiled with great fanfare in late 2014 as a reimagining of the campus on the southern edge of the Mall, stretching from the Freer Gallery of Art at 12th Street to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden at Seventh Street. The splashy concept had been in development for two years, with construction expected...

Trump, Insurrection And Classical Architecture

Before the attempted coup, architecture critics were debating the lasting impact of the president’s executive order decreeing that federal buildings should be in classical style. "Now, they are talking about whether the damage to the Capitol should remain, in some form, as a permanent goad to memory, reminding visitors of the destruction wreaked by the president’s supporters." - Washington...

45,000-Year-Old Painting, World’s Oldest Non-Abstract Art, Found In Indonesia

"Four years ago, scientists came upon the purplish pig adorning the walls of a cave hidden in a highland valley on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. They now estimate that it was painted … 45,500 years ago. If that date is correct, the find in Leang Tedongnge cave could represent the earliest known example of figurative art." -...

Caligula’s Pleasure Garden Has Been Unearthed And Will Open To Public

The remains of part of the notorious emperor's Horti Lamiani (as it was then called) were excavated from under the rubble of a derelict 19th-century apartment building. Starting this spring, Italy's culture ministry will display those remains in what has been named the Nymphaeum Museum of Piazza Vittorio. - The New York Times

Ancient Buildings At Palmyra, Destroyed By ISIS, May Really Get Rebuilt

"The ancient city of Palmyra in Syria, which was severely damaged by ISIS militants in 2015, appears to be heading toward reconstruction. In November, a memorandum of understanding on rebuilding the city's Triumphal Arch was signed between Syria's Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums and Russia's Stone Industry Association, which is based in Yekaterinburg." - The Art Newspaper

San Francisco Art Institute Cannot Sell Its Diego Rivera Mural: It’s Being Landmarked

"The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday afternoon to initiate landmark designation for the 1931 Diego Rivera mural The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City located inside the San Francisco Art Institute's Chestnut Street campus. … The SFAI board of trustees was considering removing and selling the mural, appraised at $50 million, to...

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