“Every decision made by Charles Venable over the past decade seemed to be in service of remaking a museum founded in the 19th century into an income-generating attraction, when in fact it is a peer of other great Midwestern art museums that are open to the public for free and pursue an educational mission rather than masquerading as amusement parks.” – Artnet

“The Prado paid €70,000 (around $85,000) for La Boulonnaise, a 1929 work by the Spanish painter María Blanchard. … But the move has riled some commentators, who point to a 1995 law dictating that any works created after 1881 belong in the collection of the Reina Sofia [Museum].” – Artnet

“Museum and gallery leaders in England have expressed anger, disappointment and bafflement at why commercial art galleries – which count as non-essential shops – can open five weeks before them. ‘It is just nuts’ said Rebecca Salter, the president of the Royal Academy of Arts which, like other public galleries, has been told it can reopen no sooner than 17 May. Shops, meanwhile, can open on 12 April.” – The Guardian

After 101 years of reproducing the Group of Seven’s art to the point of saturation, it feels like the time has come to give other, contemporary voices the same opportunities. – The Walrus

“The Smithsonian was always about how it could help the country reimagine itself, understand itself,” said Bunch, a historian and founding director of the popular National Museum of African American History and Culture. “The work we did with early aviation, even the way we collect history, which was always trying to ensure future generations understand how we got where we are. The notion is to help people recognize that they create the future.” – Washington Post

Several places in Italy and Great Britain are considering the question, and a few memorials have already gone up. “[They] are not intended as sweeping monuments to the historical moment, but simple places to grieve and reflect.” – The New York Times

“A nearly-life-size depiction of a kangaroo — realistic genitalia included — is the oldest known rock painting in Australia. Scientists recently pinpointed its age to 17,300 years ago with a technique that had never been used on Australian ancient art before: measuring radioactive carbon in wasp nests from rocks near the artwork.” – Live Science

To Musa Mayer’s dismay, her father, an antiracist and the son of immigrants who had fled antisemitic persecution, was now having his complex images misrepresented and their subject matter rendered simplistically provocative. – The Guardian

The museum in Washington, DC, founded by Duncan and Marjorie Phillips, was a sensation when it opened as a museum of modern art, and it’s been a refuge and inspiration since, including, at times, during the pandemic. “Dorothy Kosinski, director of the museum, tells a story: ‘I was standing outside of the Phillips in the fall when we were open for a while. A woman came out, exhaled, and said, ‘Oh! That was such a wonderful vacation!'” – NPR

Dalí, art historians say, was “very deliberate” in his art – and sketches of unfinished works also show how he combined complex mathematical calculations with artistic license in his finished paintings. – The Observer (UK)

Looks like the mystery’s been solved – and the writer was (drumroll) … the artist himself. “The text, ‘Could only have been painted by a madman,’ isn’t large enough for most people to notice, especially when it’s presented in the museum behind glass, Guleng said. To study it, the researchers needed to use infrared photography to make it more legible.” – The New York Times

Pretty much, yes. “Downtown Christchurch isn’t empty because of COVID. It’s empty because of twin catastrophes: Ten years ago an earthquake leveled much of the city—and then the local and national government botched the rebuild, squandering a golden opportunity to transform Christchurch.” Here’s what happened. – Slate

Juliet Ames couldn’t resist decorating her first salt box, back in December. Then she got permission from the city. “In the past two months, more than 100 of the decorated salt boxes have appeared around Baltimore, including more than 25 adorned by Ames herself. The boxes celebrate such iconic Baltimore figures as the filmmaker John Waters, the Natty Boh logo and the googly-eyed Mr. Trash Wheel.” – Baltimore Sun

Before she burst onto the art scene with performance art with an edge, O’Grady “had worked for the Labor and State Departments, including as an intelligence analyst in the period leading up to the Cuban Missile Crisis; attempted a novel in Europe; dropped out of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop; run a translation agency in Chicago; been a New York rock critic.” Then, in 1980, she changed her life again. – The New York Times

York was enslaved by William Clark and remained enslaved after the expedition returned. The memorial bust, which is on a pedestal where a statue of a conservative newspaper editor used to stand until it was torn down last summer, was a surprised to Portland’s Parks & Recreation Department. The city’s Parks Commissioner, Carmen Rubio: “We should regard this installation for both the important piece that it is, as well as a much-needed reminder to city leaders to hasten our work of rooting out white supremacy in our institutions.” – The Oregonian

The register of Jewish burials in the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca between 1836 and 1899, is one of very few documents left after more than 18,000 Hungarian-speaking Jews were deported from the city and murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Their homes and synagogues were ransacked, leaving almost no record of their lives and existence; the presence of this book on the auction list came as a shock. Says one survivor, “We have few documents or books, so this manuscript is a vital source of information about the community in the 19th century.” – The New York Times

A new emphasis has also changed how design firms feel about commissions. “For the new guard of playground design, the boundary between play equipment and public sculpture is blurring. … Playgrounds are increasingly seen as ‘some of the top projects to get’ – public projects which are on full display and allow landscape architects and designers to test their craft.” – The Guardian (UK)

Issues: “Change will feel snail-like as long as white organizational leaders, tenured professors, board members, and funders control and dictate, the pace of inclusion and the adoption of anti-racist practices.” So it’s time, says one nonprofit leader, to change the game entirely. – Hyperallergic

Consider, for instance, the new, widely derided “For Mary Wollstonecraft” monument in London. “Why couldn’t a statue of Wollstonecraft, the individual woman, be seen as universally inspiring and iconic? It was hard not to view the monument as a victim of its own good intentions, inadvertently becoming yet another example of a female form as emblem of an abstract idea, such as the Statue of Liberty or Marianne, a symbol of the French Republic, or any number of nameless angels, goddesses or graces on memorials. We’ve no lack of statues of women, really; it’s just that too many of the ones we have are devoid of personhood.” – T — The New York Times Style Magazine

“Plans to mark the 800th anniversary of Burgos’s magnificent Gothic cathedral with three enormous new bronze doors have ushered in an unholy row, with UNESCO advising against the project and critics attacking the €1.2m portals as an ‘artistic outrage’. … More than 31,000 people have signed an angry petition attacking the new doors as ‘an eyesore however you look at them’ and claiming ‘no anniversary warrants such ill treatment of our heritage’.” – The Guardian

“The Met has a responsibility to our field and our global community,” Max Hollein says in a long statement posted today on the Met’s website. But, declaring a “historic crisis” for museums, he says: “It is my professional opinion that a deliberate deaccession program is appropriate, useful and necessary for a museum like ours. I also believe that we must face this once-in-a-generation challenge brought by the pandemic by supporting the museum as a whole, especially its staff, while also taking the long view with regard to what is best for the museum.” – The Art Newspaper

The art fair leased a pair of converted townhouses in December last year, and it has now revealed that they will open as a new hub for international galleries to rent out for short periods, starting in October. – Artnet

There had always been rumors, and a few hints in surviving records, that there had been a hammam where the Cervercería Giralda now stands, but most people (including the owners) shrugged them off and figured the building was 1920s Moorish Revival style. Then the owners started renovating … – The Guardian

“After a renovation of a storied gallery at the Louvre Museum in Paris, the Cy Twombly Foundation has claimed that a monumental ceiling painting by the late artist has been permanently altered, thanks to a new paint job on the surrounding walls and a change in lighting. … [The Foundation] is demanding that the Salle des Bronzes be returned to its original state ahead of the museum’s reopening to the public.” – ARTnews

“Museumgoers took to social media to complain about the institution’s failure to implement effective social-distancing measures in some of its most popular spaces last weekend, in particular those decorated with frescoes by Raphael and his workshop. … In an open letter to museum management posted on Facebook, [a Vatican docent said] that he was ‘deeply ashamed and embarrassed’ that he had led a group of unsuspecting tourists into a situation which he likened to ‘Dante’s inferno.'” – The Art Newspaper