In the staff memo, Lonnie Bunch shared details of his formal response to the White House, indicating that the Smithsonian intends to undertake its own review, rather than be directed by the Trump administration. - Washington Post
The painting, Portrait of a Lady by 18th-century artist Giuseppe Ghislandi, was spotted in a photo from a house in Mar del Plata owned by the daughter of an advisor to Hermann Goering, who extorted it from the Amsterdam art dealer Jacques Goudstikker before the latter fled Europe in 1940. - The Independent (UK)
“Kim Sajet, who left her role as director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery after a high-profile clash with President Donald Trump in June, has landed a new post at the helm of the Milwaukee Art Museum.” - Artnet
By training artificial intelligence to detect emotional signals in more than 600,000 European paintings spanning 600 years, the researchers found that collective shifts in artistic mood often aligned with historical moments of prosperity, hardship, or upheaval, from the rise of trade networks to the disruptions of new technologies. - Artnet
Is it the idea that the art museum as we’ve understood it is under genuine existential threat, a relic of a battered Enlightenment worldview? Or is it the decision by so many museums in a period of extreme flux, by charging ahead with expansion plans by the dozen, to pretend that nothing has changed? - The New York Times
Turns out the walls are easier to drill into, and to accurately level the art being hung, than drywall. What’s more, they can be colored, when desired, with a special glazing technique developed by a friend of Peter Zumthor, the new building’s architect. - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
“Two activists, representing the campaign group Futuro Vegetal, targeted the basilica on Sunday, August 31, spraying the colored powder over a column while shouting ‘climate justice.’ … (They were protesting) what they call the Spanish government’s failure to act on this summer’s record wildfires.” - Artnet
Director Emilie Gordenker says the original building, which is owned by the Dutch state, is in such poor condition it needs urgent and extensive repairs to keep its priceless collection and visitors safe. - US News
The Guitar Player, housed at Kenwood in London, is signed by Vermeer and accepted as authentic. There’s a slightly different version in the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s collection, long assumed to be a later copy; in 2023, one scholar suggested it was Vermeer’s own copy. Now they can be seen side-by-side. - The Guardian
“The world is burning. Fascism is rising. Countries are falling. And we’re on the brink of incredible technological change, which will either be the end of everything or a new beginning. So, who needs artists?” - The Guardian (UK)
Vail will host a powwow and provide cultural sensitivity training. “The town also agreed to fund a new art program for underrepresented and economically disadvantaged people, and to sponsor and pay for a community forum on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” - The New York Times
The Confederacy was the enemy of the United States. Remember the extremely bloody war? So why, with a restoration of Confederate statues and names, are Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump "making common cause with apologists who believe that the wrong side won the Civil War”? - The Atlantic
Leonardo “had become one of us in the way we want 21st-century celebrities to be one of us: a tech entrepreneur, a creative, a misunderstood visionary who had more to do with our moment in history than his own.” - Irish Times
CalArts had tried to get 50-60 faculty and staff to take “voluntary separation” or early retirement, but when they didn’t get enough takers, they simply laid staff ad faculty off. - Hyperallergic
“What many opponents resent above all is the high-handed way they feel Macron decided to make his gesture to the UK, overriding the advice of specialists who say the vibrations inevitable in a long journey by road could cause irreparable damage.” - BBC
