In the past, access to the Pantheon has always been free. Roman officials suggested a €2 entrance fee several years ago, but the controversial proposal was shelved. Now, entrance to the famous historic site will cost €5. A coalition of church and culture officials signed the new policy last week. - Smithsonian
A broader examination of the Met’s antiquities collection, conducted by ICIJ, Finance Uncovered, L’Espresso and other media partners over recent months, raises new concerns over the origin of the museum’s inventory of ancient statues, friezes and other relics. - The Guardian
Bulgarian officers working under Europol staged a raid in Sofia to break up a Greek-Bulgarian art-trafficking ring. They found what curators at Bulgaria's National Art Gallery say is an uncatalogued 1949 painting by Pollock, a work estimated to be worth up to $54 million. - Artforum
A new study has been published by climate scientists who examined paintings from throughout the two artists' careers and found that the works provide a sort of visual history of the growing use of coal and the accompanying increase in smog. - CNN
"The artisans there — including a gold-leaf specialist, coppersmiths and wood carvers — fear that their meticulous work will be destroyed, as has happened in years past. Their frustrations have been intensified by the tighter control Israel has exerted over the compound in recent years, making repairs more difficult." - The New York Times
Of course, I sometimes still had to weather the churning roil of his stream of consciousness. I won’t try to replicate his frenetic, perseverating mode of expression here. But when Binstock grows focused, and whenever he writes, he sets out his arguments with precision. - The Atlantic
The exiled Chinese artist's Water Lilies #1 is 50 feet long and incorporates 650,000 Lego bricks in 22 colors. The first public display of the work will be in Ai's exhibition at the Design Gallery in London next month. - ARTnews
Just a month after the director of the Tretyakov Gallery was forced to resign after being pressured to make the exhibits "in line with spiritual and moral values," Marina Loshak is stepping down (voluntarily, she says) as director of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. - MSN (The Washington Post)
For a start, one of the artists reclassified as Ukrainian was, in fact, an ethnic Armenian, as New York's Armenian-American community was very quick to point out. Another contested issue has been whether the dancers' costumes in some of Degas's paintings are Russian or Ukrainian. - The Guardian
It’s easy to dump on the contractors. But the contractors didn’t design this overwrought building, nor did they commission it. That falls to the Culver City-based Morphosis, led by Thom Mayne, and the museum’s board. - Los Angeles Times
After some art historical detective work, "the two artworks, which were once one, now hang side-by-side ... only a sliver of wall dividing the woman from her husband and son." - Yahoo News (AFP)
"We have changed our collective tastes in response to technological progress in the past. We’ll now do it again, without even noticing that it’s happening. And if history is any indication, our tastes will evolve in a way that rigs the game in favor of human artists." - Wired
