On Tuesday evening, Lil Nas X posted an iconic diptych of himself “throwing” a photoshopped van Gogh “Sunflowers” painting at an Andy Warhol soup can work, along with the caption “i will avenge u mr van gogh.” - Hyperallergic
“We shouldn’t be vehicles for political protest and we shouldn’t be vehicles in and of itself for political change. I regard museums as civic institutions playing their role in society as providing a frame and context for the political and social discussions while remaining highly trusted.” - ARTnews
The first clue that the painting, an adhesive tape version of the similarly named New York (which hangs right-side up in Paris at the Centre Pompidou), was hung incorrectly came from a photograph of the artist’s studio in taken in 1944, shortly after he passed away. ARTnews
"We don't know the protests are effective, and we do know they're likely to cause financial problems for many museums. Here I'll add my own concern: The activists look so silly. ... The soup-and-superglue movement fails an important test of youthful, radical politics: It does not look cool." - MSN (The Atlantic)
The two plots are at the southwest corner of the National Mall, near the Washington Monument: one is directly across the Mall from the African-American Museum, and the other is directly around the corner, facing the Tidal Basin. - MSN (The Washington Post)
At the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague, two guys in "Just Stop Oil" t-shirts walked up to Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring; one tried to superglue his head to the painting, then the other poured tomato soup over him. The art is undamaged; the vandals have been arrested. - The Guardian
"These two white British men are getting themselves their own museum because lack folks and women have taken over the white man's art institutions." The South African artist Athi-Patra Ruga commented on the post: "The taste of #whitemantears". - The Art Newspaper
"In a refurbished hall that used to be the cafeteria (at the Ministry of Culture), 76 precious paintings and sculptures from Iraq's foremost artists are on display for the first time since the National Museum of Modern Art was pillaged in the aftermath of the 2003 Iraq invasion." - The Guardian
The swirling effect is meant to gently integrate the building into the surrounding meadow while creating a structure that complements — but never competes for attention with — Gehry’s adjoining signature handiwork. - The New York Times
While some union members described cold and awkward interactions with management, others had more positive anecdotes in which middle managers were excited at their colleagues’ return. - Hyperallergic
"In one Lebanese mansion an anonymous painting — pierced by shards of glass from a blown-out window and impaled by wood from the window frame — gained something extraordinary. It is now recognized by experts as a long-lost painting of Hercules and Omphale by Artemisia Gentileschi." - The New York Times
"The countdown is on for the much-anticipated April 22, 2023, reopening of the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts in Little Rock as it emerges from an ambitious redesign led by Studio Gang that fuses together a hodgepodge of several decade-spanning expansions with a natural light–flooded central addition." - The Architect's Newspaper
"A cache of 2,700-year-old marble relief carvings have been unearthed by archaeologists beneath the dilapidated Mashki Gate, just east of Mosul in Iraq. The incredibly well-preserved relics demonstrate how artists working under Assyrian King Sennacherib, who ruled between 705 and 681 B.C.E., developed their own unique style of art." - Artnet
"People are starving, people are freezing, people are dying. We are in a climate catastrophe. And all you are afraid of is tomato soup," one said, referencing last week's climate action of tomato soup on a Van Gogh painting. - NBC News
