ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

VISUAL

Ronald Perelman Sued For Money After His Paintings Survived A House Fire, Apparently Unscathed

The judge was not sympathetic; nor was he super friendly to the insurance company. But how are the Twomblys? - The New York Times

Aspen Art Museum Takes A Turn To The Global

Twenty years after founding its gala, ArtCrush, in a town where an apartment can run north of $4 million, the museum is attempting a sharp shift toward being a global institution and away from its renown as a collector’s clubhouse. - ARTnews

Is Milan’s Art World Ready For A Breakthrough?

“We are now the gateway to the European Union,” local art advisor Mattia Pozzoni told me over spritzes at local culinary institution Sant Ambroeus. The 2026 Winter Olympics will give Milan’s international profile another boost. - Artnet

After 26 Years, Lisa Philips To Retire As Director Of The New Museum

On Thursday, she announced plans to depart the New Museum in April, after the institution opens its 62,000-square-foot expansion that cost $82 million and will double the museum’s overall space when it opens, which officials project will be at the end of the year. - The New York Times

What Does It Mean To Put Your Community At The Heart Of Arts Institution Decisions?

New Art Exchange is one of just two cultural institutions in Britain – the other being Birmingham Museums Trust – that have put randomly selected members of the public at the heart of their decision making. The movement seems to be growing. - Apollo

Newly-Discovered John Singer Sargent Portrait On View At Paris’s Musée d’Orsay

The striking 1882 portrait Madame O’Connor reveals how Sargent was already experimenting with some of the same styling ideas that would go on to define his most notorious work, Madame X. - Artnet

Making The Case For Fra Angelico

“Fra Angelico,” which opens Friday and runs through Jan. 25, is one of the most anticipated exhibitions of the year. Bringing together more than 140 works in two venues, it hopes to cement Fra Angelico’s reputation as an A-list Renaissance master. - The New York Times

How Architects Are Using AI To Transform The Creative Process

“Instead of having to go build a prototype physically or a model room, you can take people on this journey and then make the decisions on what to tap left or tack right on before investing heavily in physical architecture. It also changes the role of the architect and the designer in the process. - Fortune

A Donald Trump-And-Jeffrey Epstein Statue Appears On, And Disappears From, DC’s National Mall

“The bronze-painted installation, titled Best Friends Forever, depicts the two men smiling at each other, each with an arm and leg raised as if in mid-frolic. 'In Honor of Friendship Month, we celebrate the long-lasting bond between President Donald J. Trump and his 'closest friend,' Jeffrey Epstein,' reads the plaque.” - NPR

What Happens When You Spend Three Hours Staring At A Painting

This exercise in what she calls immersive attention has remained a core element of Jennifer Roberts’s art history teaching for more than a decade, despite the ever-increasing amount of distractive pressures that smartphones, social media and now A.I. heap on students’ minds. - The New York Times

Are We At A Turning Point For Museums?

 “The general tone is concern and uncertainty. I’m not sure anyone feels like they have a clear road map to sustainability.” - Artnet

What’s Maurizio Cattelan Up To Now? A Scavenger Hunt!

The prankster artist known for the solid-gold toilet (titled America) and the banana-taped-to-the-wall (Comedian) will have participants search for copies of his new piece We Are the Revolution (an effigy of himself nailed up by the collar) in market stalls, bodegas and other spots in New York, London, and Amsterdam. - ARTnews

How Art Has Historically Depicted Aging

Physical signs of aging — baldness, wrinkles, stooped postures — first figured prominently in Roman portraiture in the 4th century BCE, but old age and its representations have often been pushed to the margins. - Hyperallergic

Citizen Historians Are Documenting The Smithsonian Before It Changes

"We came up with this idea to call for volunteers to go out and, in a systematic way, go exhibit by exhibit, room by room, hall by hall, museum by museum, and take pictures simply of what's up there now and what's being said now." - NPR

Bad Architecture Has Made Downtown Brooklyn “The Olive Garden of New York Real Estate”

Justin Davidson: “Two decades ago, Downtown Brooklyn was well connected but underpopulated. ... It’s hard to believe how thoroughly and quickly the skyline has been remade in that time — and how shoddily. … Almost all the developers who built it out opted for a style you might call Consensus Clunkism.” - Curbed (MSN)

Our Free Newsletter

Join our 30,000 subscribers

Latest

Don't Miss

function my_excerpt_length($length){ return 200; } add_filter('excerpt_length', 'my_excerpt_length');