“The role of the state is not to filter works in the name of good taste,” Thill said, adding that art should challenge audiences rather than simply please them. He said the public debate surrounding the project proves that it is doing its job. - ARTnews
"The portrait, painted around 1598 and attributed to Caravaggio in 1963, depicts Maffeo Barberini, a nobleman who later became Pope Urban VIII. The painting was acquired from a private collection by the Italian state after over a year of negotiations and will now enter Rome’s Palazzo Barberini permanent collection." - AP
The ambition to explore every facet of the present was quickly replaced by a devout commitment to questions of equity and accountability. There was a new answer to the question of what art should do: it should amplify the voices of the historically marginalized. What it shouldn’t do, it seemed, is be inventive or interesting. - Harper's
“This decision by the Fondazione Biennale is not compatible with the EU’s collective response to Russia’s brutal aggression,” said the EU commissioners for technology and culture. “Should the Fondazione Biennale ... allow Russia’s participation, we will examine further action, including the suspension or termination of an ongoing EU grant to the Biennale Foundation.” - ARTnews
The fire will have obvious economic consequences for the city, particularly through the loss of businesses caught in and close to the fire. But the emotional effect of the fire will be felt by the city’s residents and visitors, particularly if the building lies in ruins indefinitely. - The Conversation
Art Gallery of Ontario deputy director and chief curator Julian Cox will leave his post this April after eight years in the role, marking the latest departure at the Toronto museum since it became embroiled in a controversy over a failed plan to acquire a work by Nan Goldin. - ARTnews
“The claim that ‘culture is above politics’ is never neutral,” reads one open letter in response to the Biennale’s announcement. “In the case of contemporary Russia, this formula has become a political instrument used to promote aggression and advance state agendas while disguising them behind the language of cultural exchange and dialogue.” - ARTnews
“A statue of the Nubian god Apademak stands alone in the courtyard of Sudan’s National Museum, one of the few survivors of systematic looting amid a (civil war) that has developed into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.” - NBC News
The museum today is focused on the fact that fewer visitors are coming now than before the pandemic, and the concern is legitimate. But the way back can’t be merely quantitative. - Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
An investigation by the Guardian found that UK museums hold more than 263,000 items of human remains from around the world, including whole skeletons, preserved bodies, such as Egyptian mummies, skulls, bones, skin, teeth, nails, scalps and hair. - The Guardian
“Afroza Bano’s hands, once calloused from planting and weaving reed mats, now grow nimble with needle and thread. But sometimes, they get pricked by sharp pins or roughened by handling coarse fabric.” - The Xylom
“On Tuesday, March 4, commissioners voted to keep the temporary installation of ‘R-Evolution’ on display through October. The 48-foot-tall, steel-and-mesh figure of a naked woman by Petaluma artist Marco Cochrane was previously approved to be on view from mid-March 2025 to early March.” - San Francisco Chronicle (Yahoo!)
“The net effect of this is to adversely impact what is the most important historic — the most identifiable historic — house in the entire United States. This is permanent, what it will do to the White House.” - AP
Britain’s Court of Appeal has overruled a High Court judgement from 2024 over a licensing agreement which required the studio Zaha Hadid Architects to retain her name and pay a fee to use it. The ruling opens the door for current principal Patrick Schumacher to change the firm’s name or to renegotiate the contract. - Dezeen
