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The Teams That Save Spain And Portugal’s Shop Signs, From Neon To Giant Calligraphy Pens

Across the Iberian peninsula, more than 50 groups are working to save what they can of the cityscapes that are under what they feel is a kind of attack. "As small businesses close, they’re often replaced by a familiar roster of global behemoths with little connection to the city, said Laura Asensio, a graphic designer based in the north-western...

The Exploding Market For NFT Art

Most people still do not really understand it, but with the influx of cryptocapital into the NFT art market, all eyes are now glued to the possibilities of NFT art. “This whole mainstream sweep happened sooner than we anticipated,” says Jonathan Perkins, the co-founder of SuperRare, which launched in 2018. In its first year, it averaged about $8,000 a...

Now We Know This Wax Bust Is Definitely Not A Leonardo. How Do We Know? Sperm Whales

Back in 1909, a couple of very prominent German art historians decided, for various reasons, that a wax figurine of the goddess Flora that one of them had picked up at a London antique store simply had to be a genuine Leonardo da Vinci, and announced this with great fanfare. The London Times responded that no, the bust was...

French Court Rules Art Galleries Must Remain Closed (Never Mind The Auction Houses)

Gallerists, angry that their competitors at auction houses were allowed to continue operating during France's ongoing pandemic lockdown, and arguing that online sales don't work for their business (collectors want to see the art they're buying in person), sued the French state, the prime minister, and the health minister. France's Council of State has dismissed the suit, ruling that...

The Louvre’s Director Is Mounting A Public Campaign To Keep His Job

"Jean-Luc Martinez, … whose job security has been a matter of public speculation for weeks, … has been on a media tour in recent weeks, offering interviews to newspapers, magazines, and television outlets explaining his achievements at the world's most visited museum. … 'His enemies accuse him of selling the museum to tourists, carrying out costly , buying mediocre...

Sydney’s Major Museums Face Huge Funding Cuts From State Government

"The state government flagging multimillion-dollar cuts for the Art Gallery of NSW, the Australian Museum, the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences and Sydney Living Museums in budget forecasts." - The Sydney Morning Herald

Russian Artist In Obscenity Trial For Her Female Nudes

"Feminist artist and LGBTQ+ activist Yulia Tsvetkova … was detained in November 2019 and remained under house arrest in Komsomolsk-on-Amur until March 16, faces up to six years behind bars if found guilty of illegally producing and distributing pornographic materials on the internet." - Artnet

France Is Allowing Auction Houses To Keep Operating During Lockdown, But Not Galleries. Galleries Are Suing

"Late last month the president of the Conseil des Ventes, the regulatory authority for auction houses, gave notice that the government would in fact permit sale rooms to remain open with public safety restrictions in place. Allowing galleries' main competitors to remain open evoked the ire of art dealers, … trade association brought the suit against the French...

Firsts: Chicago Art Institute Appoints New Board Chair

A 15-year trustee of the museum, Denise Gardner will be the first African-American and first woman leader of the governing body for the museum and the School of the Art Institute. It is believed that she will be the first Black woman to head the board of a major U.S. art museum, although such demographics are hard to come...

New Director Of Pompeii Talks Culture Of Archaeology

"I would like to reiterate the concept I have of archaeology not only as a study of beautiful objects or monuments but also of very ephemeral traces. The real discovery, in fact, was not the object itself but the landscape that has been transformed over the centuries. Today that landscape is still agricultural but in it we have found...

The Saga Of The Jefferson Davis Chair Comes To An End (And No, It Wasn’t Really Used As A Toilet)

A shadowy art/activist collective calling itself White Lies Matter made a bit of a stir earlier this month when it stole a chair dedicated to the first and only president of the Confederate States from a cemetery in Selma, Alabama and threatened to turn it into a commode if their demands weren't met. Here's an explainer covering what exactly...

New Turn In Saudi Arabia-vs.-Louvre ‘Salvator Mundi’ Drama (It’s Still About Spite, Though)

Last week several news outlets reported, based on a French TV documentary, that the world's most expensive artwork wasn't in the Louvre's big 2019 Leonardo show because Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (reputedly the work's buyer) was angry that the Louvre's curators refused to guarantee that it was Leonardo's work. Now David D. Kirkpatrick and Elaine Sciolino report that...

Benin Bronzes Are Not Safer Held In The West, Say Researchers

“They have been equally unsafe in the hands of British, not least because of attack in 1897, which destroyed so much royal and sacred landscape,” said Dan Hicks, an archaeology professor at the University of Oxford in England who has written extensively on the Benin Bronzes. And, he added, many Benin Bronzes have headed to market in Europe, leaving...

Artist Rachel Whiteread Has Changed Her Art, And Her Life

Whiteread won the Turner Prize when she was 30, the first woman, and youngest artist, ever to win - and she id it for casting an entire house in London. She's been casting objects and the spaces around objects for three decades. But now? Now, she's building new things. - The Guardian (UK)

We Know Theo, But What About Vincent Van Gogh’s Sisters?

He (and Theo) had three. From reading a book that includes some newly translated letters, we can learn that "Lies was frustrated that women didn’t have more professional options that were socially acceptable. We learn about how Wil often copied Vincent’s drawings and was his favorite model, and that the two wrote to each other about art and...

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