The find, which includes bronze, jade, gold, and ivory pieces, many intact, is at the Sanxingdui Ruins in Sichuan province. The site was the center of an advanced Bronze Age culture that flourished over 4,000 years ago and disappeared around 1100 BCE, leaving no writing behind. - South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)
"This is a building that says 'No': after years of delays, here is a complex of enormous hard-edged boxes clad in dark gray slate with few windows and zero funky details. ... On a satellite view, it would look like Google obscured the building for security reasons." - Artnet
"Stone Mountain is a shining example of selective amnesia and Lost Cause propaganda. And the inventions of the Lost Cause bear a remarkable parallel to the campaigns of disinformation that have buttressed the belief of the Jan. 6 insurrectionists and those who support them." - Los Angeles Times
The Biennale is ticking along, and controversy remains: Some Venetians "feel that the Biennale, aided by the current city government, is monopolizing space that could be used by locals to create a sustainable, year-round cultural and economic life beyond tourism." - The New York Times
Kate Fowle took up her position just before the pandemic started, so the last two and a half years have been, as they say, a lot. But "just two months ago, she gave an interview to the New York Times detailing her plans" for PS1. - Artnet
"The show, titled 'Travels,' was to feature a group of works by 20th-century artists like Matisse, Picasso, and Chagall. ... Just hours before the show was scheduled to open, the state-run museum's director Pavel Car announced it was canceled after several art experts raised concerns about the collection's authenticity." - ARTnews
The problems of informal payments and freeports mean that "Western collectors are buying without fear of much reprisal, despite the already present provisions in international law that prohibit pillaging and include it as a war crime." - NPR
Fans of the sport and the arts might ask, "Why not?" but also, you know, why? "'It’s like the best sport ever,' said Jonas Wood, who has become one of the world’s most sought-after painters while making basketball a recurring theme in his work." - The New York Times
The artist "created them for Maya Ruiz-Picasso when she was aged between five and seven. On some pages, the little girl made impressive attempts to imitate the master. She also graded her father’s work, scribbling the number '10' on a circus scene, to show her approval." - The Observer (UK)
Sure, gladiators, but: "The recent restoration of a 17th-century wall painting of ancient Jerusalem on one of the Colosseum’s main interior arches is shedding new light on another centuries-old use of the Roman landmark: as a sacred site for Christian worship." - The New York Times
Theaster Gates' design for the Serpentine Pavilion 2022 reveals that there's slavery behind many contemporary building materials, and buildings: "To the greatest extent possible, Black Chapel was built without any materials produced by slave labor." - Fast Company
The Cosquer cave is "an underground grotto off the coast of Marseille that was once home to more than 500 works of prehistoric art." Now 150 remain, and climate change is rapidly destroying access (and the paintings themselves). But a new museum gives everyone access. - Artnet
Her father, a doctor who resisted Nazi orders, "had stored the painting in the Amsterdam Bank in Arnhem, thinking it would be safe there. But the Nazis broke into the vaults and seized it, amid widespread looting, destruction and devastation." - The Guardian (UK)
In the 1970s, "there was a backlash against reclaiming of the naked body, from feminist polemicists campaigning against pornography, to feminist artists and critics who were concerned that any image of a nude woman would play right into the male gaze." Is social media criticism similar now? - Aeon
