The French government has teamed up with tech giant Microsoft to create a “digital twin” of the 862-year-old treasure. This virtual version will be achieved by taking thousands of photographs using cameras, drones, and lasers to capture every inch of the building’s exterior and interior. Specialists will then use A.I. to stitch these back together into a perfect replica....
“When the San Francisco Art Institute shut its doors in 2022, even the turtles in the campus's courtyard pond were evicted. But deep below street level, two archivists are fighting to preserve more than 150 years of radical art history from vanishing into the void.” - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
Amy Sherald, the celebrated painter best known for her official portrait of Michelle Obama, has canceled an upcoming exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, citing concerns that the museum might remove an artwork that could further provoke the Trump administration as it seeks to exert control over the Smithsonian Institution. - Washington Post
When Johanna Burton came to MOCA in 2021, the museum was still recovering from the contentious firing of curator Helen Molesworth and resignation of director Philippe Vergne. Burton was to be co-director with Klaus Biesenbach, who instead left for Berlin. Now she herself is headed to the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia. - ARTnews
The bill—titled the Art Market Integrity Act—would amend the Bank Secrecy Act to require art dealers and auction houses to comply with anti-money-laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing regulations. - ARTnews
The museum’s collection of Buddhist painting and sculptures includes some of the greatest work in all of its holdings, writes Christopher Knight. It hasn’t been on view for the people of Los Angeles County for going on a decade, and right now it’s only there for a year. - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
Named Aeneas after the mythical Trojan hero, the program predicts where and when inscriptions were made and makes suggestions where words are missing. - The Guardian
Geophysicists say Istanbul has a 40-60% chance of a major earthquake by 2055. … There are roughly 40,000 historical sites in Istanbul that need to be protected from earthquakes. … The Washington Post studied three examples from minimal to maximum intervention: Hagia Sophia, the Basilica Cistern, and Zeyrek Çinili Hamam. - The Washington Post (MSN)
Yes, the photographer still best known for the 1987 image of a crucifix in a jar of urine that made him one of the NEA Four is now suggesting a mausoleum-like monument to Donald Trump as the official U.S. contribution to next summer’s Biennale. - Artnet
The notorious banana-duct-taped-to-a-wall, titled Comedian, debuted in 2019 at Art Basel Miami Beach, where a visitor walked into the gallery and ate the fruit. That's happened three times since, most recently last week at the Pompidou-Metz. Cattelan's complaint is that the guy didn't eat the banana peel and duct tape. - France 24
Despite more advanced manufacturing and design technologies than have existed in human history, our built environment tends overwhelmingly toward the insubstantial, the flat, and the gray, punctuated here and there by the occasional childish squiggle. - n+1
The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, umbrella organization for the de Young Museum and the Legion of Honor, is eliminating 12 positions. A statement explained the layoffs as a response to reduced municipal funding due to the city’s budget crisis, a slump in tourism, and a continued slump in attendance post-COVID. - San Francisco Chronicle
"If you look at one of our works randomly on the street, you wouldn't be able to say that's made by a robot, but we can't yet do all art under the sun because there's a lot of techniques that we haven't yet built in." - CBC
Donors are reportedly planning to pull support from, or have already severed ties with, the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art following its controversial transfer from Florida State University to New College of Florida earlier this year on the orders of Governor Ron DeSantis. - ARTnews
Johnny Depp’s new film Modi: Three Days on the Wings of Madness explores the artist’s struggle to sell his work, and the tension that existed between his own idealism and the need to be commercially minded. - The Conversation
